Batavia battles back, beats Geneva
Batavia big man Cole Gardner has learned he doesn’t much care for the view from the bench, and when he finally got back in Friday’s game at Geneva, the junior made up for lost time.
Gardner scored 11 of his game-high 16 points in the final 9 minutes, igniting Batavia’s charge from an 8-point deficit to a 49-41 victory.
Gardner, who missed the final six minutes of the first half with 2 fouls, picked up his third foul 27 seconds into the third quarter when Brad Bernard drew a charge.
“I just want to get back in so bad but I know I have to sit out for a little bit when I get those fouls,” Gardner said.
Gardner’s absence helped the Vikings to a 13-3 run to start the third quarter. They reversed a 19-17 halftime deficit to grab a 30-22 lead on a pair of Ryan Willing free throws.
That’s when Batavia coach Jim Roberts had seen enough and sent Gardner back in. After Jesse Coffey’s 3, Gardner hit a turnaround shot from the baseline to bring Batavia within 30-27 entering the fourth quarter.
“It was starting to get away for us,” Roberts said. “We were trying to stop the bleeding as best we could.”
Batavia dominated the fourth quarter 22-11, starting with a 3-pointer from sophomore Zach Strittmatter to tie the game. Gardner scored for the fifth and final lead change of the night.
“With him (Gardner) in there and (Elliott) Vaughn it is a tough matchup for us,” Geneva coach Phil Ralston said. “Give Batavia a ton of credit. Their posts came alive in that fourth quarter. They made it really hard for us to stop them.”
Batavia (12-11, 7-4) climbed back over .500 while Geneva (11-16, 5-6) couldn’t repeat its earlier overtime win last month at Batavia. The Vikings once again held down Batavia leading scorer Jesse Coffey (7 points) using a box-and-1.
Coffey was able to make plays for others, including a drive to find Gardner for a 42-34 lead as Batavia began to pull away in the fourth quarter. The Bulldogs hit 7 of their 8 attempts from the field in the fourth quarter — almost all high-percentage looks — while Geneva went 3 of 15.
“He’s good at finding people,” Gardner said of Coffey. “He’d rather get a win than score points. That’s how he is, great guy, team player. He drives good in practice so we all know it’s coming.”
With both teams out of the Upstate Eight race there wasn’t quite the raucous crowd energy level as most Batavia-Geneva games. The stands were still pretty full but the enthusiasm didn’t seem quite the same — not even enough to muster an “air-ball” chant when Geneva star Dan Trimble misfired.
But the crowd was treated to a thriller in the sophomore game. Geneva won 49-46 in overtime on Luke Polishake’s 3-pointer with 11 seconds left after Batavia’s Jake Pollack drained a 3 with 5 seconds left in regulation to force OT.
The Bulldogs varsity turned the tables, with Strittmatter (10 points) and Vaughn (9 points) also contributing.
“I thought today we did a better job getting the ball in the paint than we did at Batavia,” said Roberts, who also credited Coffey for handling the extra defensive attention that came his way.
“That’s where I thought Jesse was at his best, taking the heat, being strong with the basketball and finding Cole.”
Trimble, who didn’t play in the first meeting with Batavia, led Geneva with 15 points and Dan Hince added 10.
“We needed to play a near-perfect game to be able to beat a team that has so many matchup issues with us,” Ralston said. “Our kids worked hard, they did a lot of nice things, we just needed to have it where it was a one- or two-possession game and I think we could have pulled it out.”