LAPEL — Coming off of a season in which they won a sectional championship, the Lapel Bulldogs are optimistic heading into the 2023 season.

Last year, the Bulldogs defeated Heritage Christian 21-20 to win a sectional championship before falling to Linton-Stockton in the regional. They ended the season with a 7-6 record.

This year, Lapel has its eyes set on repeating as sectional champions.

“Our expectation is to win a sectional championship and hopefully get over that regional hump,” head coach Tim Miller said. “We’ve got a regular season to play and get better each week, but that’s what our ultimate goals are.”

To make that happen, the Bulldogs will have to replace the production lost by All-State starting running back Tyler Dollar.

Dollar ran for 2,346 yards and 30 touchdowns as a senior. Those marks were fourth and seventh in the state, respectively.

Over his four-year career at Lapel, he finished with 703 carries for 5,908 yards and 76 touchdowns.

Replacing him on offense is step No. 1 for Miller and the Bulldogs.

“He was a great, great player for us for four years. You don’t just replace a guy like Tyler,” Miller said. “It’s got to be a team effort to replace those yards and touchdowns, and it’s a challenge that we have to figure out.”

Making that challenge a bit easier is the return of all three key members of the Lapel passing attack.

Quarterback Devin Craig enters his sophomore season, and the team’s two leading receivers, Nick Witte and Rylie Hudson, are back.

As a freshman, Craig threw for 1,560 yards and nine touchdowns. Witte and Hudson were responsible for 1,323 of those yards.

The senior, Witte, caught 74 passes for 908 yards and three scores. Hudson brought in 39 passes for 415 yards and matched Witte with three touchdowns.

“We’ve never been afraid to throw the ball,” Miller said. “We expect those three to really step up, and we expect a few other guys to step up and help them out as well.”

With a year of experience under his belt and added chemistry with his wide receivers, Miller said he hopes Craig can take another leap forward.

“I think he just knows what to expect now. He has a better grasp of the playbook and timing of routes,” Miller said. “He’s been able to throw to these guys all off season, and he’s looked really good in practice all summer. We hope that can carry over onto Friday nights.”

Senior Luke Alexander, who saw limited time at quarterback last season, is set to step into the running back void left by Dollar. Last year, he ran for 60 yards and two touchdowns on 18 carries.

Defensively, the Bulldogs lost a group of seniors. Five of the team’s top six tacklers were seniors, including Bruin White, who led the team with 126 tackles and added 10 tackles for a loss.

What the team does have is the return of the entire defensive line, anchored by seniors Matt Carpenter and Chandler Lowes.

Carpenter led the Bulldogs with seven sacks and 12 tackles for a loss last year, and ended the year with 79 tackles. Lowes finished with 40 tackles and four sacks.

“We’re having a hard time blocking our defensive line in practice,” Miller said. “Matt on one end and Chandler on the other, those guys are both returning starters and really know how to get after it.”

Jaydon Rodriguez played 12 games for the team last season and accumulated 49 tackles, JJ Baxter had 34 tackles across 10 games, and helping to fill the linebacker role will be Gabe Armstrong, who had 33 tackles in nine games last season.

The team returns its top two defensive backs as well. Senior Landon Brown had four interceptions last year, and Hudson had three.

“We have some guys stepping into new roles. The first couple weeks, there will probably be different guys in there while we try and find out who performs the best,” Miller said. “We have a lot of competition in practice right now. It’s a really deep group at a lot of positions. But we don’t really go by the idea that we have to have everything figured out by the first week of August, we just have to have it figured out by the second week of October.”

Lapel opens their season at 7 p.m. Friday on the road against Hamilton Heights.