Batavia blanks St. Charles East
Batavia coach Mike Gaspari called the Bulldogs' play Friday night in their 28-0 shutout over St. Charles East "near perfect."
The Bulldogs hope to save that perfect performance for next week's 92nd Batavia-Geneva game - one which now also has major Upstate Eight Conference River division title implications.
Batavia (3-2, 2-0) did its part in turning the Week 6 matchup into a first-place showdown by dominating St. Charles East (0-5, 0-3), never allowing the Saints inside their 10-yard line.
"My heart goes out to those guys (St. Charles East), that's a tough situation to be in, but our kids executed very well on offense," Batavia coach Mike Gaspari said of the Saints' short-handed quarterback situation. "I thought we had a great defensive game plan, the kids played great. I thought our kids played pretty close to a perfect game."
Just a few of those defensive highlights: tackles for losses by Ricky Villarreal, Brian Wilson and Ben Allison, a sack for Wilson, a fumble recovery by Ben Fornek and interceptions for Fornek, Cameron Compton and a would-be INT for Sean Oroni who instead wisely let the ball fall incomplete giving the Bulldogs better field position on a fourth-down stop.
The Bulldogs did all this against St. Charles East's third-string quarterback Jake Mazanke who started the game completing his first 5 passes but finished 11 of 23 for 67 yards.
"We prepared like he was their No. 1 quarterback," Batavia defensive lineman Alec Lyons said. "He can still hurt us."
It was Batavia's quarterback Noel Gaspari who hurt the Saints in the first half, throwing for 126 of his 138 yards to stake the Bulldogs to a 21-0 halftime lead. The Bulldogs only attempted 2 passes in the second half.
After the Saints held the Bulldogs on the opening possession, Gaspari found Zach Strittmatter on a 27-yard completion on Batavia's second drive. Lyons converted a fourth-and-1 giving the Bulldogs first and goal, then completed the drive with a 1-yard plunge on third down.
Batavia stopped St. Charles East on fourth down at midfield and quickly made it 14-0 on a 6-play drive, capped on Gaspari's fade pass to Joe Sortino from 26 yards out.
"They were pressing us on the corners. We have big, fast receivers, they can go up and get them and jump over the corners," Noel Gaspari said.
That's just what the Bulldogs did again to take a 21-0 lead on Gaspari's 16-yard fade to Dave Peskind with 6:01 left in the second quarter.
"Our offensive line won us the game," Noel Gaspari said of a unit that includes Sean Tews, Ricky Garcia, Jay Thrun, Nick Pappas and Ben Read.
"If we win they are the reason why we win. We got our running game and our passing game going against these guys."
About the only thing that went wrong for Batavia was a pair of missed field goals. The Bulldogs concluded the scoring on Emund Kabba's 32-yard touchdown run down the left sideline midway through the third quarter.
A 42-yard run by Mike Brown late in the fourth quarter gave the Saints a first down at Batavia's 15-yard line but the Bulldogs held to preserve the shutout. They finished limiting the Saints to 179 yards of offense while forcing three turnovers.
"We contained their sweep, contained the flats pretty well," said Mike Gaspari, whose team reversed a pair of losses to the Saints in 2007 and 2008. "We were sound, didn't do anything real fancy, put pressure on the quarterback when we needed to and prevented the big play."
While Batavia heads into next week looking to snap a 4-game losing streak to Geneva - who leads the all-time series 48-38-5 - St. Charles East has to find other motivation.
The Saints, who didn't lose an Upstate Eight game last year en route to the conference championship, saw any hopes of a playoff appearance dashed with Friday's loss. They play three more home games before a season finale at St. Charles North.
"We have great kids and they try hard and work hard," Sains coach Mike Fields said. "We just shoot ourselves in the foot and make mental mistakes and mental mistakes lead to physical mistakes and breakdowns. And you can't do that against quality opponents."
Dom Bucaro fumble recovery and Joe Hoscheit's sack were among the highlights.
"I feel bad for these seniors because they are good football players," Fields said. "They haven't been able to give themselves a chance yet. I hope in the last four weeks maybe they can relax a little bit now. They have nothing to lose. Now it is jut a matter of playing for pride, playing for the love of the game. I'm hopeful they will do that."