Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

With a key offseason milestone approaching, the Bainbridge Bearcats are gearing up for a high-profile scrimmage against the 6A-Region 1 14-time Region champion Colquitt County Packers, scheduled to take place at Centennial Field in under a month.

Bearcats football coach Jay Walls, however, is analyzing a single performance marker: improvement.

There were noticeable strides made during the Florida State event—four wins, one in a playoff setting—where the Bearcats displayed sharper execution and stronger competitive energy. It set the standard for tracking continued progress.

For Walls, the seven-on-seven tournament isn’t just about wins—it’s about how his team performs under pressure and whether their execution continues to sharpen.

“If we execute better than we did the last time we did seven-on-seven, there’ll be some adversity. How we deal with adversity, how we compete—that’s what I want to see. The biggest thing is just improvement from our last tournament.”

Reflecting on the Valdosta organized team activities held in the last week of June, Walls outlined what the Bearcats gained and what still needs work.

“The first thing that we got was conditioning,” he said. “Working in shoulder pads early in the morning—it was pretty warm—so we got some good conditioning in, and that was a benefit.”

But it wasn’t just about physical fitness. Bainbridge tested itself against multiple programs in competitive scrimmage action.

“We went against some good competition. We scrimmaged Valdosta. We did some good things offensively and defensively,” Walls noted. “But as we got tired, the execution went down. It showed that we’re not in the best shape that we need to be in.”

Still, Walls was encouraged by flashes of strong play and the opportunity to measure his group against solid opponents.

“We scrimmaged Charlton County, Rickards for a little bit, and Fleming Island, out of the Jacksonville area,” he said. “We did some things well. Did well at the line of scrimmage, and executed well at times.”

Looking ahead, the Bearcats are set to ramp up their conditioning efforts in July—a crucial phase that Wall believes will put them in position to compete at a higher level.

“We’ve just got to improve. And we are. In July, you start running them really hard. Our conditioning will improve.”

Now that the Thomasville tournament has wrapped and Bainbridge’s OTAs are in progress, Walls, his coaching staff, and players are locked in on one goal: getting better, together.