By PAUL LIOTTI
BATAVIA – The 10th-ranked Batavia Blue Devils flexed their muscle on both sides of the ball, and proved they will be a force to be reckoned with in Class B by manhandling Letchworth-Warsaw 40-0 Friday night in a Livingston County League contest.
Batavia’s Ray Leach, who sat out last week’s game, found gaping holes in his offensive line all night, rambling for 175 yards on 20 carries and scored four touchdowns in three quarters of action. Leach’s 175 yards was only one part of the potent pounding ground game Batavia threw at Letsaw, as the Blue Devils finished the game with 42 carries for 371 yards. Junior Alex Rood finished with 10 carries for 82 yards and senior Tyivon Ayala 43 yards on just 4 carries.
“We really work hard every time we take the field, whether it’s in practice or a game,” Leach said. “Our first string is as good as our second and our second as good as our first. Today our O-Line was incredible and opened up a lot of holes for us.”
The Blue Devils (3-0) also did damage through the air, as senior QB went 9-of-13 for 96 yards and a pretty roll-out completion to Andrew Francis in the fourth quarter to close out the scoring
“We want to show teams that we run it if we want to run it or throw it if we want to throw it,” Batavia coach Brennan Briggs said. “My philosophy is to not force anything…take what we can get with the right matchups. We saw some matchups in film this week that we liked.”
While the game was pretty much in hand at halftime with Batavia holding a 27-0 advantage, the Blue Devils defense left no doubt about it with the partisan crowd in the third quarter, limiting L/W (2-1) to just 8 total yards offense in the quarter in three drives.
“They’re a good football team, no doubt about that,” Letsaw coach Justin Mann said.
“I was very proud of how our kids played tonight,” coach Brennan Briggs said. “Our kids are hungry: When we’re on offense they want to score and when we’re on defense we work hard to keep them out of the endzone.
The game’s outcome was surely a disappointment for Class C’s 19th ranked L/W, which entered the game 2-0 with two shutouts, including a 14-0 win against Cal-Mum last week. The shutout string harkened back to 2010, when Letchworth ran through the regular season undefeated and unscored upon.
But Friday L/W was jolted back to reality.
“This unit will respond,” Mann said. “We just had a conversation with them about responding. We didn’t have a great week of practice and it showed. But we’ll review the tape and get ready for Way-Co.”
Batavia senior QB Ethan Biscaro opened the scoring with a 1-yard dive in the game’s opening drive, the first of four 1-yard touchdown runs. L/W seemed to regain momentum as they put together a 12-play drive, but a 4th-and-11 pass completion from senior QB Tom Standera to sophomore WR Eddie Stores gained just 9 yards and the Blue Devils took over at their own 5 yards line.
The first play got the Blue Devils out of the shadow of their own endzone when Leach ripped off a 30-yard run. Two plays later Rood broke free for 34 yards, and six more rushes put the ball on the 1 yard line where Leach followed his linemen over the goal line. All but 8 yards of the 95 yard drive was on the ground, and the Blue Devils had set the tone for the game.
Batavia increased the lead to 20-0 with 3:21 left in the half on its next drive that mixed in some passes. A 9-play, 73 yard drive ended with another 1-yard touchdown run by Leach, but Biscaro finished the drive perfect on 3 passes for 31 yards to three different receivers. Then just before halftime, the Blue Devils struck again from one yard on Leach’s third short scoring run. This touchdown was set up by a nifty 30-yard punt return by Taiyo Iburi-Bethel, setting the table for the Blue Devils at the L/W 38 yard line.
One touchdown in each of the last two quarters closed out the scoring: A 31-yard run by Leach late in the third and then early in the fourth Biscaro hit Andrew Francis on a roll-out to the right side.
L/W did put together a nice drive to close out the game, putting together a 10-play, 43-yard drive – all on the ground – but the Batavia second unit held on fourth down at the Batavia 27-yard line.
| L/W | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Batavia | 7 | 20 | 7 | 6 | 40 |
| Scoring | |
| Batavia | Ethan Biscaro 1 run (Ben Paserk kick) |
| Batavia | Ray Leach 1 run (Ben Paserk kick) |
| Batavia | Ray Leach 1 run (Ben Paserk kick) |
| Batavia | Ray Leach 1 run (pass failed) |
| Batavia | Ray Leach 31 run (Ben Paserk kick) |
| Batavia | Andrew Francis 8 pass from Ethan Biscaro (kick failed) |
| Rushing |
| Batavia (42-372) — Ray Leach 20-175, Alex Rood 10-82, Tyivon Ayala 4-43, Cody Burns 1-37, Ethan Biscaro 6-24, Andrew Francis 1-10 |
| L/W (27-127): Adrian Figoura 4-60, Sam Miller 2-16, Austin Williams 2-15, Josh Andrews 4-14, Aaron Miller 1-9, Dalton English 5-5, Dan Baker-Herter 2-5, CJ Hallopeter 4-3, Sam Wolf 1-0, Team 2-0 |
| Receiving |
| Batavia: Taiyo Iburi-Bethel-5-58, Zack Anderson-1-17, Mason McFollins-1-13, Andrew Francis-1-9, Ray Leach-1-8, Cody Burns-1-4 |
| L/W: Roshaun Scott 4-35, Dalton English 1-2, Eddie Stores 1-9, Sam Wolf 1-1 |
| Passing |
| Batavia: Ethan Biscaro 9-13-96-1-0, Alex Rood 1-1-13-0-0 |
| L/W: Tom Standera 7-16-47-0-0 |
Leave a Reply