Batavia blanks Streamwood
When it comes to motivating his offensive linemen, Batavia coach Dennis Piron can dangle a carrot like few others.
With an offer like this to Adam Hunger, it’s no wonder his 6-foot-4, 250-pound senior did just what his coach asked.
“What we committed to him was if he blocked well, we might hand him the ball from time to time,” Piron said. “He blocked well so we handed him the ball twice. That was probably once too many.”
Piron was joking, easy to be in a good mood following the Bulldogs’ fourth straight win to open the season, a 33-0 shutout over Streamwood Friday on Homecoming in Batavia.
Hunger started the scoring with a 5-yard touchdown run when he came in motion and rambled around the left end for his score. He later carried for a 2-yard gain.
“We’ve been using him as a lead back, motion back in this set,” Piron said. “He’s a good kid, he’s got a lot of energy in practice, he’s very fast and honestly in practice when we gave him some runs he looked pretty good and you might see him at fullback, h-back, catch some passes. I’m pretty happy for him especially the way he is blocking. He’s a tough, tough kid.”
Going back to pee-wee football and flag football, Hunger could not recall ever scoring before.
“It was pretty awesome,” Hunger said. “It was the first time I’ve ever had my name called even. Been working on it all week. I went in motion last week (against Geneva). People were overplaying it, we went against it last week and it worked.”
After Hunger’s opening touchdown, the rest of the night was more of the usual suspects as far as the Batavia offensive stars go. Junior quarterback Micah Coffey completed 13 of 19 passes for 126 yards, 2 touchdowns and 1 interception, and that doesn’t count a 41-yard touchdown to Michael Moffatt called back on a penalty. Zach Strittmatter caught both touchdown passes and finished with 6 catches for 72 yards. Anthony Scaccia ran for 100 yards on just 12 carries while Anthony Thielk broke off a 69-yard run to finish with 81 yards on 4 attempts.
Batavia (4-0, 2-0 in the Upstate Eight River) jumped to leads of 14-0 after one quarter, 21-0 at halftime and 33-0 through three quarters — and Piron had already pulled Coffey and his other skill position players before the fourth quarter began.
That gave Batavia a chance to show its depth. Nine different players caught a pass, Kevin Green carried 9 times for 50 yards in the second half while backup quarterback Daniel Albrecht went 5-for-7 for 50 yards and an interception.
“I’m happy about the weapons we have,” Piron said. “It was nice to get Kevin Green going a little tonight. It was nice to get a number of receivers catching the football and get Daniel Albrecht some work at quarterback which I felt was important.”
Streamwood (1-3, 0-1), coming off a 56-0 loss to Waubonsie Valley, only had one first down at halftime and finished with four. The short-handed Sabres had just 47 yards of net offense.
“Give Streamwood credit,” Piron said. “They do have weapons at receiver, you don’t cover properly, you get one of those receivers in space, they are gone. My hat goes off to Streamwood and their coaching staff and the effort they put in tonight with the chips down against us, and at the same time I’m proud of our defense for not allowing any big plays tonight.”
Sabres quarterback Mason Polich completed 9 of 21 passes for 75 yards. Blake Holder and Trent McCaw both intercepted passes to lead the defense.
“These two (Waubonsie and Batavia) we knew coming into the season would be two tough weeks back to back,” Sabres coach Cal Cummins said. “Our kids were really down Monday and Tuesday but we came back Wednesday and Thursday and practiced hard and I think it showed.
“Coming off last week our goal was to come over and compete tonight. We were totally embarrassed last week. We played a lousy game bottom line. We feel we are a little better than that. Our goal was to come over here and make them earn some things and I feel good we had some things going. They are a mighty fine team and I think they will end up having a great year.”