The Hampton-Dumont-CAL football team was plagued by a second quarter air raid, but held their own defensively outside of that in a 22-8 loss at Osage in their season opener on Friday, as aired on 104.9 KLMJ.
After a scoreless first quarter, Osage faced a 4th and 13 early in the second and kept a scramble drill alive with a 26 yard touchdown pass to go up 8-0. After forcing a Bulldogs punt, the Green Devils struck again on the next play from scrimmage with a 69 touchdown pass, to extend their lead to 14-0. On the final play of the first half, the Green Devils scored on a 15 yard touchdown pass and entered the half up 22-0. In the first half. The Bulldogs were denied from sustaining drives, and they accumulated less than 30 yards of offense.
In the second half, the Bulldogs defense frustrated the Green Devils by forcing two turnovers with a fumble recovery by Joe Powers, an interception by Hunter Rieken and one turnover on downs. The Bulldogs broke through on the scoreboard when Blaek Burmester had a 22 yard touchdown pass to Brody Strother in the fourth, which cut the deficit to 22-8. It was Burmester’s first career varsity touchdown pass. The Green Devils put the game away from that point. Bulldog Head Coach Cole Miller.
“When the defense is on the field for so long, their quarterback did a good job of extending plays and they capitalized in the first half to go up 22-0 on us. We knew we had some work to do in the second half. We made some adjustments,” says Miller. “We got some kids working back. They’re not quite healthy so they had a pitch count tonight. We’d rather have them down the stretch of the season, rather than four quarters tonight. We used more of those guys in the second half and rotated them in. They were able to capitalize on some plays and we were able to put some points up on the board. We just didn’t get enough stops and didn’t capitalize enough times down the stretch.”
The Bulldogs had 112 yards of offense between 75 yards through the air and 37 yards on the ground. Burmester had 55 passing yards. Ryder Strother had 20 yards passing.
HD-CAL will take on Clarion-Goldfield-Dows in their home opener in Week 2.
