Big plays give Bulldogs lead in fourth quarter

HAMPTON---- The Hampton-Dumont-CAL Bulldogs football team started the season with a 13-0 win over the Iowa Falls-Alden Cadets on Aug. 30.

It took until the fourth quarter for any points to be scored as neither team was able to get much going on offense throughout the first three quarters. The Bulldogs held the Cadets to 57 passing yards and 71 rushing yards. The Bulldogs also had two interceptions both in the final quarter.

Head coach Cole Miller said that starting the season with a win is always a good thing.

“Ending the game on a high note is definitely better than taking a loss,” Miller said. “And with the first game like this there is a lot of things to learn from. Soit wasn’t pretty and hopefully they stay hungry and put in the work to make sure we are ready for Clarion.”

The Bulldogs scored first with 9:15 left in the fourth quarter after a long touchdown run to make it 6-0 after the extra point attempt was no good. On the next drive for the Cadets, the Bulldogs got their first interception and got the ball to the Cadets 18-yard line. The Bulldogs then scored another touchdown on the ground to make it 13-0 with around 6:23 left in the game. Later in the quarter the Bulldogs got another interception with just under 6:00 left.

Miller said that they called the right plays at the right time in the final quarter. Miller said that the Bulldogs defense played well all game.

“Iowa Falls-Alden drove down a little bit, but when it came down to crunch time our defense was able to hold them,” Miller said. “Our defense did a great job all night.”

While the offense struggled at times during the game, Miller said it was due to a combination to Iow Falls-Alden’s defense and the Bulldogs being young this year.

“Iowa Falls had a great game plan defensively,” Miller said. “They were confusing our linemen up front and at halftime we were able to talk about that and clear some things up. A lot of it was what they were doing and some of it was that we are just a young football team. We graduated 18 seniors last year who played a lot for us. We have six seniors with a handful of varsity of experience. We are going to have to grow this year and focus on getting better every game and hopefully those learning curves we don’t have to grow through too many of them.”

One thing Miller said he hopes the team takes away from the game is that they are a physical football team.

“”I hope no one doubts that after watching the film on this,” Miller said. “We have to do those little things and when we fix those little things we broke things wide open. So I hope they realize that those little things we need to keep practicing those things every day and we have to be attentive on those things so they become second nature and have some better offensive success and hope the defense continues to play like it did tonite.

 The Bulldogs next game is at home on Sept. 6. against Clarion-Goldfield-Dows at 7 p.m.