Martinsville, Bedford North Lawrence clash in football season opener

In the season opener for both teams, Martinvsille High School was able to hold off Bedford North Lawrence High School Stars, despite a late game surge from the Stars.

Led on offense by senior quarterback Tyler Adkins, the Artesians were able to score four touchdowns against the Stars, with Adkins accounting for three himself on back-to-back drives, two through the air and the other a two-yard rush.

Junior running back Brayden Shrake was also a big-time contributor to Martinsville’s offense Friday night, netting over 100 rushing yards and picking up multiple first downs to keep his team moving downfield.

Artesians’ coach Brian Dugger noted his team’s defense performance as a key to the 28-14 victory, holding Bedford scoreless until well into the fourth quarter.

“I thought we played OK tonight. You know, we made a lot of mistakes, but I thought we still made enough plays to be successful, obviously. And the defense played great. I thought our defense was phenomenal tonight. We were kind of a little worried about our defense because we're so young, but I thought they played lights out tonight,” he said.

Coming out of the win, Dugger said he felt the team’s offensive play didn’t match up to its potential, an area the team will look to improve upon heading into the week two matchup at home against Bloomington South.

“Our offense wasn’t on our A game, but at least we had our B game, if that makes sense,” Dugger said.

“We made a lot of mistakes up front. Our blocking assignments weren't really good. I think they kind of did some things with some movement and some things we weren't kind of expecting, credit to their coaching staff, and it kind of threw our kids for a loop a little bit. So, we've got to do a better job of communicating up front,” he said.

Through the game, Dugger said the team was able to make the necessary adjustments to keep the offensive moving.

“We did tonight as the game went on. You saw that with Brayden Shrake, getting more and more yards as the game went on. A lot of that had to do with our offensive line finally kind of figuring it out,” said the coach.

For Bedford North Lawrence, head coach Derrick Barker said the team’s red-zone execution was one of the keys to the team’s loss on Friday, being unable to score until midway through the fourth quarter, despite being within striking distance multiple times.

“There in the first half, I think we had two or three drives where we were able to get the ball down inside the 20. And we just couldn't put it in the end zone, couldn't score, you know, couldn't score points. And it's frustrating because that's a problem that we had last year at times as well and something that we've worked a lot on, but you know, just got to keep working on it,” said Barker.

Barker commended the team’s defensive efforts on the night, despite multiple third-down conversions from Martinsville.

“Defensively, I thought we played pretty well overall,” he said

“They converted, they made a lot of plays on third down, you know to kind of keep drives going or I think they even maybe scored a couple touchdowns on third down. Where you know, we're just one play away it seemed like from getting a stop and pulling them out of the endzone but, you know, credit to them. They made the plays when they had to and we didn't so that was the biggest factor in the game,” he continued.

Despite the tough start from the Stars, the team rallied in the fourth quarter behind the play of junior quarterback Memphis Louden, who was able to lead his team to the end zone twice within the final five minutes of the game, including a 30-yard rushing TD, bringing the score to within 14 after BNL had previously trailed by 28.

“[Louden] is the real deal. He's going to be a really good quarterback,” Dugger said of Louden’s performance against his team.

“I thought he played exceptionally well,” Barker said about Louden’s play after the game. I don't think he was ever comfortable all night. You know, they did a good job of constantly putting pressure on him, but he made a lot of plays with his legs, extended a lot of plays with his legs to then find guys open with his arm and, you know, we knew he was going to do a good job for us.”

Ultimately, after cutting the Artesians’ lead in half and recovering an onside kick to regain possession, a tipped pass from Louden that was intercepted by Martinsville linebacker Quentin Bland in the final minutes of the game would seal BNL’s fate.

Despite the loss, Barker was proud of his team’s effort, even while facing a large deficit late in the game.

"Our kids played hard, you know, we got down 28 to nothing and they battled back and made it 28-14 and we had the ball there, knocking on the door to maybe make it a one score game. So, I'm really proud of the effort and how we played. Now it's just cleaning up and doing some fine tuning and hopefully getting better and learning from it,” Barker said.

This article originally appeared on The Times-Mail: Martinsville and Bedford clash in high school football season opener