Batavia snuffs out Rochelle's last-second play, wins by 6

The Batavia defense has struggled this season, but it made the game-saving stop with 0:00 on the clock Friday night against Rochelle.

After the Bulldogs were flagged for pass interference on consecutive pass attempts to Ben Schwartz, the Hubs had the ball on the Batavia 7-yard line. This time no flags would be deposited on the turf as Batavia held on for a wild and crazy 34-28 Western Sun Conference victory.

Batavia (2-2, 1-1) was looking to put the game away with 1:29 remaining with an Erich Zeddies 29-yard field goal, but a bad snapped rolled all the way to the Rochelle 47-yard line. The Hubs were able to move the ball quickly downfield before Batavia sealed the contest with no time remaining.

"We would've liked to have gotten a first down and just ended the game with the ball without scoring," Batavia coach Mike Gaspari said. "Give the Rochelle kids credit for moving the ball downfield with a little bit of time there and making it one heck of a game."

Both teams will be scratching their heads in practice this week as they discuss mistakes and missed opportunities. For instance, the Hubs collected 323 yards on the ground but fumbled the ball away on 4 occasions.

"We lost four fumbles and that's the game," Rochelle coach Kevin Crandall said. "Our kids played their hearts out but turnovers caught up with us. Give Batavia credit thought, they made plays when they needed."

Rochelle (2-2, 0-2) took a 22-14 lead into halftime thanks to an outrageous turn of events in the final 2:10.

Austin Gabriel's had a big 24-yard run on a third down that led to a 30-yard touchdown pass from Nate Eyster to Schwartz with 0:28 remaining. Then, the Hubs got the ball right back when Schwartz picked off Jordan Coffey's pass and returned it all the way to the 7-yard where he'd then haul in another touchdown pass from Eyster with 8 seconds left.

Coffey (19-of-32, 273 yards passing) and the Bulldogs defense wouldn't be discouraged though. They forced the Hubs to punt on their first drive of the second half and answered with a 7-play scoring drive on Coffey's 23-yard pass to Ryan Webb to make it 22-20.

"As a quarterback in our system you have to be resilient because you're going to make some mistakes," Gaspari said. "He came back and had one heck of a second half."

Rochelle extended its lead to 28-20 on Dan Ruppenthal's 6-yard run with 2:36 left in the third quarter but the Bulldogs answered with 43 seconds left in the quarter on Bai Kabba's 4-yard run to make 28-26.

Kabba (12 carries, 136 yards), whose role was much more significant with Kyle Duhig not playing, then put the Bulldogs back on top for good with 6:11 remaining on a nifty 49-yard touchdown run.

"It was just a counter and the O-line did a phenomenal job," Kabba said. "Coach tells us on the counter to just look right up the field and that's exactly what I did."