2 hours Ago By Rob Hunt The Herald Bulletin
LAPEL -- With skills as diversified as his interests, Isaiah Young has been an impact player since arriving on the Lapel football scene as a freshman in 2023. For the second straight year, Young led the Bulldogs in tackles — doubling his production from a season ago — while also showing a high propensity for taking the ball away from the opposition and putting it back into the hands of his team’s high-powered offense. Young’s talent and high level of production helped lead the Bulldogs to their seventh football sectional title and has earned the Lapel sophomore the 2024 THB Sports Football-Defense Athlete of the Year award.
“I’m just eternally grateful. t meant a lot to me to get this award,” Young said. “I didn’t even know this award existed, honestly, but I’m very grateful to get it.
” During Lapel’s 9-4 campaign, when its defense put an end to the play of its opposition, there was a good chance Young was involved. He recorded 162 tackles, averaging better than 13 per contest, up from his team-high 78 as a freshman. The middle linebacker recorded three sacks and recovered five fumbles while forcing another.
Young returned one of those recoveries for a touchdown during Lapel’s historic sectional championship win at Triton Central. Lapel defeated three straight nine-win teams — two on the road — during sectional, something that had never been done before. The second of those three wins — a 21-0 home shutout of Centerville — provided one of the more memorable highlights for Young as the team was able to finish its only shutout of the season.
“That’s the week that my ankle started acting up a little bit,” he said. “We started talking about (shutout) in the second half. We were coming out of the locker room .
.. we were wanting to shut them out.
” His top individual game came in an Oct. 11 trip to Class 3A Jay County. That night, Young recorded 15 tackles, forced two fumbles and recovered one as Lapel snapped a midseason three-game losing skid with a 14-12 win over the Patriots.
Young became serious about football in the eighth grade, and it has taken over for baseball as his most-loved sport. He now watches more of the NFL on television and hopes in the future to continue playing football collegiately. Football is not his only passion, however -- far from it.
Young loves music — particularly Elvis Presley -- plays alto saxophone in the Lapel band and also participates in the school’s extracurricular activity whose tradition rivals that of the Bulldogs football program, the show choir. “With show choir -- I love to dance, but I just love music in general,” he said. “It has nothing to do with sports.
It’s just the music that I love. The way (Elvis) sings his songs, it just speaks out. I love it.
” On the field, Young will continue to nurture his instincts and nose for the football. His biggest area of improvement this season was adding physical strength and mental confidence. Continued improvement is the plan as Young heads into Year 3.
“There were quite a few games — including our whole sectional run — where I was livid, and you can ask my parents -- because I did not play my best,” he said, “It always seems like, at the end of the year, I start to slow down. That’s something I want to improve on is keeping that energy level up.”.
