Batavia returns to form against West Chicago

Batavia was going to rekindle its winning ways sooner or later. It came sooner with a 27-6 nonconference victory Friday at West Chicago.

Bulldogs offensive linemen Kyle Dee, Andrew Hansen, Sean Tews, Jeff Hartzell and Pat Martin delivered touchdowns to both starting backs, and sophomore quarterback Noel Gaspari threw his first varsity touchdown pass.

"You've got to give all the credit to the offensive linemen," Gaspari said. "They won us the game. ... We started out running the ball great and it just continued throughout the rest of the game."

It may be a costly win. Late in the first half tailback Pete Koczmara got twisted after a 3-yard gain and suffered a possible sprain of the right MCL.

"Oh well. We won the game. That's all that matters," said Koczmara, who ran 16 times for 71 yards with a 7-yard touchdown run.

The senior made West Chicago pay on the first of two punt coverage gaffes. The Wildcats defense, headed by linebacker Nick Carnot, opened by forcing a three-and-out, but the punt ticked a cover man and Batavia's Mike Clopton recovered at the Wildcats 19-yard line. Soon enough Koczmara sliced in.

"It's a pretty even football game, their defense played real well, our defense was playing well and it was kind of a momentum thing," said Wildcats coach Paul Reinke.

Late in the first half Batavia (1-1) rode Gaspari's legs and right arm to a 14-0 halftime lead. The 155-pounder ran for 12 yards, completed two 13-yard passes, then after Koczmara got hurt, split two defenders on a touchdown pass to Clopton.

After halftime West Chicago (0-2) capitalized on Batavia's own muffed punt, Kyle Schar recovering at the Bulldogs 29. Quarterback Evan Bernard got it close on a slant to Sean Paler, then cut the margin to 14-6 on a 6-yard keeper at 5:00 of the third quarter.

"I felt like we were in the game pretty much the whole game, except we kept on beating ourselves," Bernard said. "Towards the end they started to pull away. We've just got to learn how to win."

Batavia's Adam Svoboda recovered another deflected West Chicago punt, all the way down to the 3. Fullback Dan Hartmann hammered through, and on the next possession Emund Kabba's 36-yard touchdown run wrapped it up.

"I'm just so happy for them that they got a win here in Week 2," said Batavia coach Mike Gaspari, the quarterback's father. "Now we can move on, move into the (Western Sun Conference) and see what happens. It's going to be fun."