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Batavia rallies past Larkin

The Batavia football team could have gone into halftime Saturday after tied 14-14 against Larkin.

That scenario wasn’t good enough for the Bulldogs.

Michael Moffatt got behind the Royals’ defense and caught a 45-yard touchdown pass from Micah Coffey with no time left in the half. The point after was missed, but Batavia took a 20-14 lead and went on for a 46-14 Upstate Eight River victory at Memorial Field in Elgin.

“It was the end of the half so you know Micah is going to throw it up for me and give me a chance. I just happened to run by them,” Moffatt said. “We came out really flat and it was big for us because brought us momentum going into the half. It really got everyone going again.”

With the game tied 14-14, the Bulldogs (5-1, 3-0) looked like they would grab the lead again, but Larkin’s Jeff Pruitt intercepted Coffey in the end zone with 35.4 seconds remaining in the half.

The Royals (3-3, 2-2) got the ball on their 20 and threw an incompletion on first down. After second- and third-down runs, Batavia called timeouts to force Larkin to punt. The Bulldogs got the ball with 16 seconds remaining on its 38. Coffey had a 17-yard run to Larkin’s 45 to set up the game-changing touchdown.

“It would have been very easy for us to not be aggressive,” Batavia coach Dennis Piron said. “I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to be aggressive.”

Batavia used the momentum to score on all four of its second-half drives to break the game open. Coffey hit Moffatt for a 2-yard score, Anthony Scaccia added his second and third touchdowns runs and Blake Crowder added a late score.

Coffey and Scaccia connected on a 21-yard touchdown on Batavia’s first drive of the game for a 7-0 lead.

The Royals answered with a 48-yard touchdown run on a reverse by Jarelle Shipp. Larkin took the lead on a 90-yard interception return for a touchdown from Aaron Campbell with 11:42 remaining in the first half.

Scaccia had his first scoring run, an 8-yard run, with 8:36 remaining in the second quarter to tie the game at 14-14.

The Royals had just 90 yards of offense in the second half and 181 for the game. Damion Clemons was held to just 18 yards on 10 carries. Kemmerin Blalark went 11 of 17 passing for 141 yards.

“Hats off to them, they came up and stopped us offensively,” Larkin coach Mike Scianna said. “We knew they were going to try to shut down (Clemons), which is what they did.”

The Bulldogs had 7 sacks of Blalark.

Scaccia had 184 yards rushing on 30 carries to help the Bulldogs to 307 yards on the ground. Coffey was 14 of 19 for 175 yards and 3 touchdowns. Moffatt had 5 catches for 73 yards.

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