BY STEVE BRADLEY
LE ROY – For nearly 125 years the football teams from Le Roy and Caledonia-Mumford high schools took the field as opponents.
The two small-school powerhouses, who have won a combined 31 Section V football championships and five state titles, first faced off in 1900 but joined forces this spring and took the field together for the first time as the Le Roy/Cal-Mum rivals on Friday night before a large crowd at Hartwood Park.
The evening included a nod to the tradition of each program as legendary Cal-Mum coaches Bill McAlee and Mike Monacelli joined LeRoy greats Don Santini and Brian Moran at midfield for the opening coin toss. All are members of the Section V Football Hall of Fame.
“It was awesome to see those guys,” said Rivals coach Mike Humphrey, who won Section V championships in 2006, ’07 and ’08 as a player for LeRoy. “Coach Santini was my father’s coach, Coach Moran was obviously my coach and I saw Coach Monacelli across the sidelines my whole playing career. It was nice, it was great, and I think it was a good thing to do. … History is a big part of this rivalry and this merger, and I think that was a good way to further strengthen the merger by bringing those guys out.”
The Batavia Blue Devils, who have a rich history of their own with six Section V crowns in the past 10 seasons, captured the coin toss and used a strong opening drive as the springboard to a 32-0 victory in a game that was called with 10:53 remaining in the fourth quarter due to thunder and lightning in the area.
“Our boys have been looking forward to this since we put this game on our schedule,” Batavia coach Alex Veltz said. “I know LeRoy/Cal-Mum was looking forward to the game as well. It was definitely a great atmosphere and I am just glad that our boys were able to come out and deliver that physical brand of football that we try to play.”
The Blue Devils relied on their ground game to set the tone, chewing up more than half of the first quarter on their opening drive. Senior running back Zailen Griffin sped 14 yards around left end to give Batavia a 6-0 lead with 5:46 to play in the first.
The Rivals responded with an impressive series of their own. Brady McClurg hit Peter Clark with a pass that took LeRoy/Cal-Mum deep into Batavia territory. Carter Mullen’s interception in the end zone ended the threat, but the Rivals immediately recovered a fumble and took over at the Batavia 15.
Greyson Fix recovered a fumble inside the 10-yard line as the Batavia defense came through with the second of its three takeaways in the first half.
Senior quarterback Bronx Buchholz, who threw for 125 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 100 yards and another TD, guided the Blue Devils down the field and Griffin found the end zone from 18 yards out as Batavia extended its lead to 12-0 with 14.5 seconds remaining in the first.
“He’s short, but he runs like he’s a big guy,” Buchholz said of Griffin, who is listed as 5-foot-5 on the roster and ran for 93 yards on 12 carries. “He just runs fearless and he gets right back up and I love it.”
Fix came up with another fumble recovery a few plays later and Batavia quickly took advantage. Mullen used a double-move to get behind the defense and Buchholz hit him in stride for a 60-yard score, Batavia’s second TD in a 50-second span.
“It’s a sluggo route, a glance and go,” Mullen said. “I was just running the slant and my goal was to get the corner to turn his hips and once he turns his hips, I’m gone. I saw that and I just had green grass in front of me.”
Buchholz bulled his way into the end zone from three yards out with 38.2 seconds to play in the second quarter and his conversion pass to Justin Smith gave Batavia a 26-0 advantage at the half.
A steady rain began to fall at halftime, but that did not prevent Buchholz from finding Smith for an 18-yard score with 8:35 to play in the third.
“We established our run game like we planned and once everything spread out we let our receivers make plays and that’s what I like to see,” Buchholz said.
The Rivals drove into Batavia territory again in the third, but the Batavia defense turned them away again. Junior linebacker Maggio Buchholz led the Blue Devils with 10 tackles, sophomore Brock Bigsby contributed eight and senior Lakoda Mruczek added six and forced a fumble.
“I have a phenomenal defensive coordinator in Matt McCracken,” Veltz said. “He came over last year and introduced our guys to a brand new system and it took a while for it to take last year, but now these guys are coming into their second season and they know the system. To see them execute and to see him coordinate, it’s like watching poetry out there and that is what we saw tonight.”
Lightning was spotted above the scoreboard in the south end zone 1:07 into the fourth quarter, forcing both teams to their locker rooms and the stands to be cleared. Thunder and lightning persisted for more than 40 minutes and representatives from both teams agreed to end the game.
Veltz, who is a former Batavia player, enjoyed the opportunity to play a road game in Genesee County and said he hopes that the programs can continue to play on a regular basis.
“Living where we are we don’t have the opportunity to play a local rival,” Veltz said. “I am hoping that now that these two are merged that we can become that and that this can become a tradition year after year.”
Batavia will travel to Rochester to face Vertus Charter School at the Rochester Community Sports Complex at 1 p.m. on Saturday.
Football coaches often say the greatest improvement that they see in their teams happens between the first and second games of the season. Humphrey hopes that is the case for the Rivals, who host Dansville/Wayland-Cohocton at 7 p.m. on Friday at Cal-Mum’s Hamilton Field.
“When you are playing a really good team like Batavia, you can’t make mistakes,” Humphrey said. “Football is a hard game, you’ve got to control everything that you can control. If you are going to beat good teams, you need to control the controlables, and we didn’t.”
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