Batavia holds off Lake Park

The Batavia football team took its undefeated record to a tough place to play Friday night.

Batavia’s offense was in top form in the Upstate Eight Conference crossover game, both in the air and on the ground. The defense made some key plays also and the Bulldogs went home 33-29 winners to move to 5-0.

“That’s a good team,” said Batavia coach Dennis Piron of Lake Park. “Our (offensive) linemen made the difference between the two teams especially at the end. We ran well. Anthony Scaccia ran hard and I’m very proud of our quarterback (Micah Coffey).”

The linemen who saw action Friday are Adam Hunger, Ben Link, Sebastian Vermaas, Connor McKeehan, Mitchell Krusz and Noah Cotten.

Scaccia finished with 105 yards on 19 carries, and Coffey threw for 199 yards and 3 touchdown passes to Zachary Strittmatter.

“It’s awesome to be able to play with these guys. It’s not one guy. It’s a whole team effort,” Coffey said.

Batavia led 20-14 at halftime and was up 26-14 on Anthony Thielk’s 12-yard run with 9:45 left in the third quarter. But the Lancers (2-3) responded with a six-minute drive that was capped with a Zack Gehant 9-yard pass to Scott Filip.

A couple of minutes later, Lake Park’s Antonio Shenault returned an interception for a touchdown. That and a Gehant conversion run put the Lancers up 29-26 with 2:24 remaining in the third.

Early in the fourth quarter, Batavia went ahead for good on Thielk’s second touchdown of the game, a 2-yard run.

Thielk intercepted a Gehant pass with 4:21 left in the game to kill Lake Park’s last chance at a scoring drive.

Gehant finished with 197 passing yards.

Lancers coach Chris Roll stressed to his team afterward that it is very much in the playoff hunt despite its second straight loss to an elite opponent. Waubonsie Valley beat Lake Park in Week 4.

“I told them these were all team mistakes. One week, we were better after playing the Waubonsie. The next week, we’re better having played Batavia. But we have to go on a run,” he said.