From the Bench: Regular Season Slate Not Only Slate Loaded as Scrimmage Foes are 'AAAA' Standouts
By Jeff Toquinto on August 03, 2025 from Sports Blog
Bridgeport High School’s 2025 football schedule is loaded with plenty of new schools and heavyweights. Go ahead and add the team’s preseason slate as a slate not made with the timid in mind.
There are a few things different from last year’s scrimmages. Both teams the Tribe faced in the preseason in 2024 are not part of this year’s two-game set. And what is probably good news for the BHS faithful, there is a home game this year.
Last year, Bridgeport visited Parkersburg for a scrimmage. The Big Reds had been a constant on the preseason slate for several years and it was convenient for both schools – a quick shot of about an hour up or down Route 50.
Also last year, the Indians were part of the Queen City Quad, which was held on the campus of Fort Hill (Maryland) High School. As the name suggests, Bridgeport was one of four schools competing as they squared off against Fort Hill, Clarkson Football North out of Ontario, Canada, and St. Frances Academy out of Baltimore.
Phares liked the setup and was hoping to be part of that for a while. However, that became a one-year only scrimmage situation when Fort Hill became a part of the Tribe’s upcoming regular season schedule.
So, what is on the docket this year?
For the first time since 2023, the Indians will host a scrimmage. On Saturday, August 16, the Tribe will host a team they played up until the last few seasons – Parkersburg South.
The Patriots will make a Saturday morning visit to Wayne Jamison Field. Action gets started at 10 a.m. and there is no admission charge for anyone wanting to get any early glimpse of the Tribe.
“It’s great when you play a team in a higher classification, and in particular a good one,” said Phares of PSHS. “It’s great for our young 
guys that early in the season because we need to build depth against a regular season schedule that has a lot of talented teams.”
guys that early in the season because we need to build depth against a regular season schedule that has a lot of talented teams.”
As for the second scrimmage, the coach has one issue. Phares would have preferred to play it on a Friday since it is the weekend before the season-opening contest at Buckhannon-Upshur. However, when the opponent is in the eastern panhandle and a bus trip takes more than three hours, the circumstances have to be right to get that Friday scrimmage in.
“Friday is what you want, but with school being in session, needing a bus and then doing all of that traveling, it kind of made it impossible,” said Phares. “Still, this is a big-time scrimmage for us and should give us some early answers.”
The scrimmage will be on Saturday, August 23 at 1 p.m. The opponent? Last year’s Class AAAA runner-up Spring Mills. Getting the Cardinals on the scrimmage docket proved to be a lot easier than filling out the preseason slate in recent years.
“I coached with (head) Coach (Marcus) Law when we were both at Morgantown and we have a good relationship,” said Phares. “Spring Mills had actually put the word out they were looking for a scrimmage and all we had to do after reaching out to them was to see if we could connect on the date, which we were able to do.”
Outside of a one-point win against Huntington in the semi-finals of the Class AAAA playoffs last year, Spring Mills was the only team to sniff eventual champion Martinsburg. The Cardinals lost to the Bulldogs during the regular season by a 17-12 score before falling 24-17 in the state title game to MHS.
“Both scrimmages are huge, but Spring Mills is new to us, and we know they’re a dominant program. The goal is to get better, and a test like this can help you get there early in the year,” said Phares. “We’ll go into both scrimmages with more inexperience than we’ve had in a while, and there’s no better way to turn the inexperience into game-ready experience than to square off against two of the top (Class) AAAA programs in the state.”
As for the 175-mile-plus trip to Spring Mills High School, Phares said there is another benefit.
“The kids typically love the bus rides; the coaches, not so much,” Phares said with a laugh. “They’ll joke around and have time to bond and have fun, but we’ll let them know when it’s time to get serious. We’re going to not only see how good we are during the regular season with some really tough opponents, but we’re also going to find out a lot early in our scrimmages this year.”
Editor's Note: Top photo shows Tyler Phares being interviewed by Joe Brocato of MetroNews following last year's state title win, while the bottom photo is from a 2023 preseason practice.
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