Prairie Ridge ends Batavia's brilliant year
In reaching the Class 6A semifinals for the second time in its 100 years of football history, Batavia had to come from behind for two of its three playoff victories.
Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, the third time wasn't the charm.
This time it was Prairie Ridge who reversed a halftime deficit. The Wolves scored 20 straight points in the second half on their way to a 33-22 victory in front of an overflow, electric crowd on both sides Saturday at Batavia.
Prairie Ridge (12-1) will play Richwoods for the 6A state championship at 1 p.m. Saturday at Memorial Stadium in Champaign while Batavia (12-1) deals with the same heartbreak the Wolves experienced the past two years losing in the semifinals.
"These kids are like my children," said first-year Batavia head coach Dennis Piron. "What a special group of kids. This is not going to be easy for a long time to get over for these boys or these coaches. I feel horrible for these kids."
Besides the sting of the season-ending loss and coming up a game short of the program's second state trip in six years, what was it that had the Bulldogs between all the postgame hugs and tears shaking their heads?
Certainly two near touchdowns in the fourth quarter as Batavia made a furious rally from 19 points down with 11 minutes, 52 seconds left in the game.
The Bulldogs got 8 points back in a hurry on Noel Gaspari's third touchdown pass of the game, a 4-yarder to Evan Zeddies. After Gaspari also completed a 2-point conversion, the Bulldogs were within 11 points with 10:56 left.
On their next possession, Gaspari found Jon Gray cutting across the middle for a 25-yard touchdown. But the play came back on a downfield block at the 2-yard line; Batavia later dropped a pass in the end zone and wound up with no points when it could have made it a 33-30 game.
After the defense held again, the Bulldogs appeared to get in the end zone once more when Zeddies caught a 5-yard pass from Gaspari at the goal line. But Prairie Ridge safety Sean Folliard delivered a crushing hit and in the same motion was able to wrestle the ball away from Zeddies.
Officials ruled it an interception and the Bulldogs never got their hands on the ball again.
"He (Zeddies) had the ball and I just stripped it out when he was falling to the ground," Folliard said. "We practice every day to anticipate any situation. Just trying to knock the ball out any way we can. We hit hard, we play hard."
"I saw Sean come up and really lay a hit on Batavia's receiver," Wolves coach Chris Schremp said. "Him coming away with the ball doesn't surprise me. What a phenomenal play."
The Bulldogs saw the plays differently.
"You can't blame referees for this," Gaspari said. "It's hard not to. The guy didn't go down when (Mike) Moffatt supposedly clipped him (on Gray's called-back TD). Zeddies had his feet in the end zone when he caught it, that should be a touchdown. That's two touchdowns taken away. But you can't blame referees. We could have done better. We couldn't have hit him in the back, Evan could have held onto it, we all could have done a better job."
The Bulldogs definitely wanted to do a better job containing Prairie Ridge's ground attack, but backs Connor Greenwald, Jordan Getzelman and company caused the problems Batavia feared it would after scouting the Wolves six times this year.
Both teams amassed over 400 yards of offense in nearly opposite fashion. Prairie Ridge ran for 373 yards and threw for 33 for 406; Batavia behind Gaspari's career-day threw for 371 and ran for 49 for 420.
"That is a great offense," Schremp said. "Until time ran out I was nervous. They can score points quick."
Greenwald shredded Batavia's normally dominant run defense for 235 yards and 2 touchdowns on 26 carries.
"Their offensive line was really good," Batavia defensive lineman Cole Gardner said. "They doubled-teamed well. It was hard to get through. Their running backs got those extra yards all the time."
The Wolves defense came up with several huge plays. Besides Folliard's game-sealing crushing hit and interception in the end zone, Josh Hrudicka intercepted a pair of passes.
Hrudicka returned the second of those two for a 37-yard touchdown on a play that Folliard also was in the middle of by knocking the ball free from Gardner, and Hrudicka came up with the deflection. That play late in the third quarter was sandwiched between an 17-yard touchdown run by Getzelman and a 25-yard touchdown burst by Greenwald that turned a 1-point halftime deficit into a 33-14 lead.
"It all starts with the O-line, they played one heck of a game," Greenwald said. "Give all the credit to them.
"Losing those past two years (in the semifinals) have been really tough. We beat ourselves last year. We didn't want to do that today."
It was Batavia's defense that came up with the big plays in the first half. Moffatt hauled down quarterback Nick Nissen a yard short of a first down to stop Prairie Ridge's opening drive at Batavia's 3-yard line.
Later in the half, Gray's interception when the Wolves were driving for a possible 2-score halftime lead instead set up Gaspari for a big drive. On both a 26-yard completion to Zeddies followed by a 38-yard strike to Zach Strittmatter the Batavia receivers broke tackles, with Strittmatter racing all the way into the end zone to put the Bulldogs ahead 14-13 at halftime.
A 12-1 season nobody in Batavia will ever forget included playoff wins over Notre Dame and Lake Forest when the Bulldogs rallied in the second half for wins. On Saturday it was the Wolves who did just that despite a gutsy effort that saw Gaspari complete 28 of 45 passes in gusty conditions to eight receivers everyone from Zeddies' 6 receptions to offensive lineman Zack Shoettes who caught a deflected pass and rumbled 8 yards.
"Some plays at the end of the third quarter put us in more of a hole than we needed to be. Hats of to them (Prairie Ridge), they made some plays," said Piron who for the third straight game used his timeouts to play the wind to his advantage and even punted once on third-and-long to punt with the wind.
"The kids fought to the bitter end with every ounce they have. I think we're two of the best teams in Illinois, any class. Hopefully as negative emotions wear off the positive emotion that will fill that will be for time well spent. Work not in vain."