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Girls soccer: Batavia drops Larkin for 9th straight win

A couple of impressive streaks continued for the Batavia girls soccer team on Tuesday night.

The Bulldogs won their ninth straight game and recorded their sixth straight shutout with a 5-0 Upstate Eight Conference River Division win over Larkin at Elgin's Memorial Field.

"We have really been consistent with staying organized on the field and communicating," Batavia coach Mark Gianfrancesco said. "You can have a lot of success doing those two things. I think that has a lot to do with where we are as a team right now. The girls all continue to work hard at getting used to playing together as a team."

Larkin managed only one serious scoring attempt all game and that came late in the second half.

"We just kept the pressure on them," Batavia senior Anna Holcombe said. "Our through balls were working well, too. We did a good job of getting the ball up to our offense."

And the Batavia offense knew exactly what to do with those opportunities. Holcombe opened the scoring for Batavia on a goal off a corner kick from Gracey DiBiase just over 10 minutes into the contest.

"It was nice pass from Gracey," Holcombe said. "All I had to do was tip it in. "We were making good connections with our passes all game. We worked the ball in from the outside and into the middle of the box."

CeCe Hamann added a goal later in the first half to make it 2-0 at halftime.

Anna Rakos scored a goal in the second half and Grace Salyers added a pair late.

Larkin dropped its second straight game after opening the season with 5 straight wins.

"I hate to use injuries as an excuse because Batavia played great and deserves all the credit," Larkin coach Ken Hall said. "It just hurt that we were without our top defender Amy Leon (concussion). We would have at least been able to put up a better fight. You need all the help you can get against a team as good as Batavia."

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