Batavia 4-0 after blanking St. Charles East
Eight plays.
Batavia football coach Dennis Piron felt he had a little extra advantage heading into Saturday's resumption of Friday night's storm-shortened game against St. Charles East.
"It was only eight plays but we found a number of things that we could correct," said Piron. "Talk about analyzing stuff - -we analyzed those eight plays for like 2 ½ hours. It really felt like it paid dividends for us offensively, especially on the first drive for us offensively."
Batavia marched 85 yards in 11 plays to score the game's first points on a 30-yard touchdown run by tailback Zach Garrett (16 carries, 88 yards) with 1:40 left in the opening quarter.
The Bulldogs (4-0, 2-0) compiled a 15-play, 93-yard scoring drive on their next possession, capped by quarterback Kyle Niemiec's 1-yard keeper, to grab a 14-0 halftime lead on the way to a 28-0 Upstate Eight Conference River Division victory over the Saints (1-3, 1-1) at Bulldog Stadium.
Niemiec (22 of 30, 219 yards) was nearly the picture of perfection as he completed 15 consecutive passes at one point, including 13 straight during the 2 first-half scoring drives.
"We came out today and honestly felt like we were more prepared," said Niemiec, who added a 3-yard TD run in the third quarter before tossing a 13-yard scoring pass to senior receiver Canaan Coffey with 7 minutes remaining.
"We watched film this morning and our offensive line adjusted perfectly," added Niemiec. "When they adjusted, it opened up holes for guys like Garrett."
Coffey, who finished with 11 catches for 116 yards, was Niemiec's go-to receiver throughout the contest.
"We just have that connection," Niemiec said of Coffey. "Every quarterback has that one connection with somebody but I have that with all of our receivers. That's the best part about our offense. I can trust any of our receivers and they can all trust me."
The Bulldogs' second TD drive included a 33-yard strike from Niemiec to Cole Stokke (4 catches, 58 yards) on a third-and-3 play from the Saints' 36.
"They executed and made plays," Saints coach Bryce Farquhar said of the Bulldogs. "We've had troubles with the big play. We wanted to take the big play away from Batavia and I think our kids did that this week.
"They've got a heck of a team. They didn't make many mistakes. Offensively, we turned the ball over a few times. We've made improvements every week but overall when you're playing a team like Batavia, you have to cut down on the turnovers and you've got to make reads."
A pair of fumble recoveries by senior defensive lineman Miles Williams led to the Bulldogs' 2 second-half touchdowns.
"We played the option very aggressively as we got more and more comfortable," said Piron, who credited scout team players Ben Weerts, Greg Drake, Selim Smlatic and Ethan Krumwiede for preparing the Bulldogs' defensive starters.
"That was the most important thing for us and I can't say enough about our scout kids. They got so good at it I felt they could have come in and run it."
"We rarely used the ball and if we did we used a mini-football," added Weerts. "It helped the defense. They had to get to their reads right away without guessing."