The Hampton-Dumont-CAL football team picked up its most important victory of the regular season, 38-7 over Dike-New Hartford Friday, as aired on 104.9 KLMJ and RadioOnTheGo’s YouTube channel.
The Bulldogs made a statement early, forcing the Wolverines to three-and-outs on their first two drives. A recovered muffed punt and a blocked punt both set the Bulldogs up for scoring opportunities, and they capitalized on many short fields in the first half. It was 14-0 after the first quarter and 21-0 at halftime. One of Blaek Burmester’s two deep touchdown passes to Aaden Keehn helped put the game away in the second half.
With a 38-0 lead, the Bulldogs briefly had the running clock rule in effect before DNH’s Dev Davis ran in an 80-yard touchdown for their only score of the game. Head Coach Cole Miller says it’s the type of performance he knew his team had the potential for.
“We’ve known the potential is there,” Miller says. “We have a talented football team, sometimes discipline isn’t our strong suit. So we’ve really been trying to crack down on that the last few weeks. And we had a lot of penalties tonight, which is unfortunate. But we only had two the week before. So the discipline’s coming. We’re starting to play assignment-based football and not get some penalties. And we’re doing a better job. We’re protecting the football, which is huge. So the kids are responding to all the challenges that we give them, all the focuses we put in throughout the week. They’re hitting their stride going into the playoffs, and that’s encouraging.”
The Bulldogs also had rushing scores by Jacob Mahler, Ryder Strother and Brody Strother. Burmester was 12/18 passing for 237 yards, a season-high.
Dike-New Hartford coach Don Betts says the early mistakes were too much to overcome.
“I thought we had a plan, we thought we had them ready to play, and quite honestly, I don’t think we were ready to play,” Betts says. “That’s 100 percent on me. My job is to make sure that our guys are ready to play. we just didn’t have it. Had a couple miscues early on special teams and just deflated us in a hurry and we just couldn’t get it back. It was a spark, I believe, for Hampton-Dumont-CAL and kind of deflated us, and we just couldn’t get out of our way after that. So one of those ball games that you hate going through, but when you do, there’s nothing you can do to change it. It’s time to get refocused and move on.”
Davis led the Wolverines with five rushes for 87 yards, over half of the team’s total offense.
Hampton-Dumont-CAL is the two-seed of 2A District 4, and will host a first round playoff game next week on 104.9 KLMJ. Dike-New Hartford is the three-seed, and will be on the road in the first round.
Don Betts interview:
