Batavia's offense comes alive in win at South Elgin
The Batavia football team has a multitude of offensive weapons at its disposal and on Saturday the Bulldogs unloaded just about the whole cache in a 49-21 win over South Elgin at Millennium Field in Streamwood.
Batavia improved to 6-1 to secure a playoff spot.
The Bulldogs had 10 different ball carriers, 3 different passers, and 6 different receivers churn out 494 yards of total offense. Batavia also had 6 players reach the end zone and 3 separate passers throw for touchdowns.
Reggie Phillips led the running attack with 124 yards on 10 carries, including a pair of touchdowns. Colin Cheaney was the top receiver with 83 yards on 4 receptions and a touchdown.
'We have a lot of talented players," Batavia coach Dennis Piron said. "We like to use them all when we can. Everything started to click. A lot of kids got touches and catches. I was also really happy with the quarterback rotation. It was just really good all around game for us."
Fighting for its own playoff lives, South Elgin (3-4) came out strong and led 14-7 after the first quarter. However, Batavia rattled off 4 unanswered touchdowns in the second quarter to grab a commanding 34-14 halftime lead.
A 36-yard run by Phillips started the surge and tied the game at 14-14 with 9:50 left in the second quarter. The Bulldogs turned to some trickery to take the lead 21-14 with a halfback option pass from Jared Martin to Cheaney, who made a great reaching catch while falling backward in the corner of the end zone.
"We drew that play up last week," Cheaney said. "We have a lot of running backs that make plays and open up the passing game and the offensive line does a great job of giving us time to run those plays."
Dane Anderson added a 14-yard touchdown run and Riley Cooper threw a 7-yard touchdown pass to Glenn Albanese to round out the scoring in the first half. Mathew Huizinga had opened the scoring for the Bulldogs with a 2-yard run that capped a 66-yard opening drive.
Batavia extended the lead to 42-14 in the third quarter with a 4-yard touchdown run by Phillips. After a South Elgin touchdown, the Bulldogs closed out the scoring on a 23-yard touchdown pass from Ben Weerts to Collin Richter,
South Elgin quarterback Nate Gomez had touchdown passes of 40 and 19 yards to Dasmond Lockett. Gomez also ran for a touchdown and had a team-high 85 yards rushing on 15 carries. Lockett had 3 receptions for 74 yards.
"They are a really good, well-coached football team," South Elgin coach Patrick Pistorio. "We spent a ton of time trying to figure out their tendencies with all their offensive players, but it's difficult. There were a lot of mismatches with their height on the perimeter that we just couldn't do much about."