INDIAN RIVER – Football season is almost here.
For the first time this summer, the Inland Lakes Bulldogs took the field to compete in a 6-on-6 football passing event, going up against Rogers City at Shanley Field on Wednesday night.
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“It’s nice to knock the rust off before the season actually gets going,” Inland Lakes coach Travis Meyer said. “It’s good to get some kids running some patterns, doing more than just running or catching, actually trying to run and catch. We’ve got fast kids, and we’ve got guys who can catch, but we’ve got to figure out who can do both.”
Here’s some quick takeaways from Wednesday’s session.
Playmakers on display
Like last year, when the Bulldogs reached the 8-player Division 1 state championship game in Marquette, they appear to have quite a few playmakers at their disposal this campaign.
Among those is junior Andre Bradford, who made his presence known both offensively and defensively, making several catches as a receiver and intercepting at least two passes at cornerback.
Mitch Crawford, Wyatt Hanel and plenty of others also showed what kind of weapons they could be on the gridiron this fall, looking impressive on both sides of the ball.
“We’re going to miss (last year’s) seniors, but I think we’ve got some guys who can step up in, and we’ve kind of had a next man up mentality just because of injuries,” Meyer said. “I think a lot of these guys are a little bit more ready for this than even what we expected.”
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Quarterback reps
With senior quarterback Aidan Fenstermaker not present at Wednesday’s event, two other I-L quarterbacks had a chance to get some valuable reps in.
For the most part, junior quarterback Ty Kolly and sophomore Landon Fenstermaker were solid, completing passes and running the offense smoothly.
Coach Meyer was impressed by both.
“Ty’s got a high football IQ, he throws a really good ball, and he made really, really good decisions,” Meyer said. “I know we can count on him, whether it’s because Aidan’s (Fenstermaker) taking a break or injured, or we’ve got Aidan in a different spot just to see what he can do in space. Landon (Fenstermaker) is a good young athlete, and he does a great job at the JV level, and we wanted to see what he can do with varsity speed. He held his own.”
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Still thinking about Marquette
It’s been several months since the narrow state title game loss to Martin at the Superior Dome, but the Bulldogs still have it in the back of their minds.
Meyer made that clear late Wednesday.
“It’s not behind us. If you don’t learn from stuff like that, you’re not going to improve,” Meyer said. “That’s on our schedule for the first week of practice, is to go through and make sure what happened is at least learned. We have to understand what happened and why and what we can do about it to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Inland Lakes opens fall practice on Monday, Aug. 12.
Contact sports editor Jared Greenleaf at jgreenleaf@gannett.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter @sportsCDT
This article originally appeared on Cheboygan Daily Tribune: Inland Lakes football gets in reps, shakes off rust at 6-on-6 session
Cheboygan Daily Tribune
