Yorkville hangs on for rare win over Batavia
For the first time since 2002, the Batavia football team will not qualify for the playoffs.
That's because Yorkville beat the Bulldogs for the first time since the 1980s, holding on for a 14-12 victory Friday in Batavia.
It was revenge of sorts for the Foxes who were clobbered 44-6 by the Bulldogs during their Homecoming festivities a season ago.
"Coach (Mike) Gaspari has a young team and they're working hard but when you start a lot of young kids it's tough to do in this conference," Yorkville coach Jim Still said. "We've been knocking on the door and today they crushed the door down."
With a saturated field, steady rain throughout, the Foxes' pro-I offense and Batavia's fondness for running the ball, it was a game truly decided in the trenches.
Yorkville (3-3, 2-2) struck first. After Batavia's Ben Fornek picked off an errant Luke Parece pass, the Bulldogs fumbled the ball right back to the Foxes two plays later. That gave Yorkville excellent field position and tailback Tony LaMantia (25 carries, 119 yards) scored on a 9-yard run with 6:44 left in the opening half.
"We've been pretty much a smashmouth team," LaMantia said. "Everyone just came together and executed the game plan."
Batavia (1-5, 0-4) put a nice drive together to try to answer the Foxes, converting first downs on three fourth-down plays but were without timeouts late and quarterback Noel Gaspari was sacked twice to end the half.
Although the momentum was lost, the Bulldogs quickly regained it when Danny Seiton took the first play from scrimmage of the third quarter for an 80-yard touchdown. The Bulldogs missed the PAT though, which proved key.
"They missed the extra point and I told our guys we're still ahead and that is going to come back to hurt (Batavia)," Still said. "And we're going to drive the ball down and score and go up 8."
The Foxes would go up by 8 on Will Parker's 8-yard run and the ensuing PAT with 10:17 remaining in the fourth quarter, but the Bulldogs weren't done.
After not getting the official's call on what appeared to be a safety, the Bulldogs turned to their offense. Gaspari connected with Jack Clancy on a 25-yard pass to convert a 4th-and-10 to set up Seiton for a 5-yard touchdown run with 1:04 left.
"We've had calls like that go against us all season; that's just the way it goes sometimes," Mike Gaspari said. "That was a great throw and catch at the end of the game to get us that in a pretty desperate situation."
Needing the 2-point conversion to tie, the Bulldogs called on Seiton but he was taken down near the line of scrimmage.
"You have to credit Yorkville. Coach Still has hung in there during some tough times and I can relate to that," Mike Gaspari said. "We're going to keep battling. We have a third of a season left and we can still do a lot of good things and get better."