Batavia beats Geneva to continue hot start

Last year, Ian Larson stunned Geneva in the final seconds.

On Tuesday, the Batavia senior didn't wait nearly as long.

He made his biggest plays in the first half, scoring twice to lead the Bulldogs to a 2-1 victory in an Upstate Eight River game at Burgess Field in Geneva.

Larson has now scored 11 goals in 11 games to help Batavia (9-1-1, 5-0-0) continue its great start to the season.

"Can he score goals? Yes. Can he assist? Yes. He can do those things and he could do those things as a freshman," Batavia coach Mark Gianfrancesco said. "Now it's more of a leadership role too. He's taken on ownership and making guys better and pushing other guys and things like that."

Larson struck first with 18:05 on the clock in the first half.

"The ball came across the box and my first instinct was to fake with my right and plant it onto my stronger foot," he said. "Luckily I got it inside the post."

He connected again with 10:32 remaining before halftime, using his speed to break away from the Geneva back line.

"It was a foot race," he said. "I got in behind him there and just got a touch across the box and slotted it in the corner."

The teams have now split their six meetings in the previous five seasons with Larson leading the Bulldogs to back-to-back wins. Last year, he scored with 11.4 seconds left in the game to lift the Bulldogs to a 1-0 victory.

"Batavia is a nice team, but it's pretty clear that Ian is the guy that makes their team go," Geneva coach Ryan Estabrook said. "He just makes it look very simple with how he plays the game."

Geneva (5-3-2, 2-2-1) didn't go away easily and cut the deficit to 2-1 with 27:38 remaining in the game when Drew Klaus assisted Jason Lagger.

The Vikings continued to pressure the Bulldogs, but just fell short of drawing even.

"It was definitely two different halves out there today," Estabrook said. "We had the offsides goal called back and we created a few other opportunities that were really dangerous for us."

Larson could have put the game away with 4:48 left, but Geneva goalkeeper Duncan Turnbull denied his penalty kick.

That gave the Vikings another life and they nearly netted the equalizer with 2:52 remaining.

Sophomore Matt Sweet thought he scored the biggest goal of his young career on the aforesaid play, but he was ruled offsides.

The Vikings had one other decent opportunity on a long freekick from Matthew Luetzen about a minute later, but Batavia goalkeeper John Faraone was able to make the save.

"We played very immature tonight for soccer players and went more direct," Gianfrancesco said. "When we didn't make them pay on the counter, it was right back down and we didn't have to play that way. We were the ones winning so we need to be smarter with the ball when we get to that point next time."