Seven fumble recoveries, two which directly resulted in touchdowns, helped the Hamburg football team to a lopsided 66-8 win against Essex last Friday.

In addition to the turnovers, Coach Luke Stockstell said he was pleased with the way the Hamburg team played Friday.

The Wildcats played with passion.

In fact, Stockstell said the team would likely have more wins if they had played all year the way they played at Essex on Friday.

Kaleb Kahue led the rushing effort with 139 yards. He scored three times.

Jared Murphy scored on an eight-yard run.

Andrew Thompson scored on a seven-yard run and connected on scoring passes with Collin Nahkunst and Kyle Sebek.

Two Hamburg players scored touchdowns on fumble recoveries. Those were by Matt Barrett and Blake Finnell.

“We played to our potential,” Coach Stockstell said. “We did what we were supposed to last week.”

In other recent action, the Wildcats dropped a Sept. 11 game to Villisca, 34-8.

Hamburg led early on in the contest thanks to a touchdown run by Kahue and a blocked punt by Barrett that resulted in a safety.

Villisca scored a pair of late first half touchdowns to lead 14-8 at the break.

A couple of late scores in the fourth quarter made the score look less competitive.

The low point of the game was an injury to the Hamburg starting quarterback, Doug Raymond.

Coach Stockstell said Raymond was hurt on a horse-collar tackle that went uncalled by the officials.

The horse-collar tackle is an illegal maneuver in which a defender tackles another player by grabbing the back-inside of an opponent's shoulder pads from behind and yanking the player down.

Coach Stockstell said there was some fear that Raymond had suffered a spinal injury as the result of the horse-collar tackle. Fortunately, the actual injury turned out to be a hip-flexor injury and a cracked rib.

The injury kept Raymond from playing in the Essex game. Coach Stockstell said Raymond might return this week.

Raymond was scheduled to practice Tuesday. Coach Stockstell said the plan would be to work

Raymond back into the practice schedule slowly and keep him out of hitting drills for at least a day.