BATAVIA – Friday night could not have been more perfect for the Batavia football team.
Playing under the stars with weather barely dipping below 70 degrees, the Bulldogs held a high-powered Larkin passing attack scoreless. Most impressively, Batavia sacked sacked Kyle Newquist eight times, while also holding receiver Trevor Whitehead, who had 27 catches for 470 yards and four touchdowns in the Royals’ first two games, to only one catch for 14 yards.
Larkin had negative-43 rushing yards in the first half.
Offensively, Noel Gaspari matched his defense’s performance, completing all 13 of his passes on the night for 204 yards and two touchdowns in Batavia’s 41-0 blowout of the Royals.
“I’ve never had a passing performance like that,” Gaspari said. “I owe it all to my linemen, they did a great job blocking and my receivers did a nice job catching the ball. So it’s not all me, it was them [too].
“The running game [also] got going and that helped the versatility of our offense.”
In addition to Gaspari’s seven-yard touchdown run in the first quarter to give Batavia (2-1, 1-0 Upstate Eight Conference River) a 6-0 lead, Batavia ran for 158 yards in the game and had three different running backs find the end zone.
Senior Emund Kabba, whose second-quarter touchdown gave Batavia a 12-0 advantage, led the team with 52 yards on eight carries.
“It tells us that anybody can be a weapon,” said Gaspari of the team’s versatility. “Anyone can score.”
One of the Bulldogs’ six different players to score touchdowns was junior tight end Cole Gardner, who Gaspari found in the second quarter for a six-yard touchdown reception. Gardner was also a significant force at defensive end for the Bulldogs, one of many in the Bulldogs’ front seven to sack Newquist.
“We just double covered [Whitehead] and figured if we got enough pressure on [Newquist], he wouldn’t be able to do anything,” Gardner said. “And it worked. [Newquist] couldn’t get the ball out and throw it to him. We put our best guys on [Whitehead] to shut him down and we did.”
In the attempt to keep Whitehead from single-handedly beating them, as he did for the Royals (1-2, 0-1 UEC River) in Week 1 and nearly did against Oswego East a week ago in Larkin’s 35-34 loss, Batavia aligned senior Alex Maze against the Royals’ star wideout in his first career varsity start and often placed safety David Peskind over the top in double coverage.
The strategy paid off for Batavia, specifically for the team’s sack total and Peskind, who intercepted Newquist twice and also recovered a fumble.
“I thought our game plan, defensively, was outstanding by our defensive staff and the kids executed it flawlessly,” coach Mike Gaspari said.
“It sure feels good to start off like this against a team that certainly had success coming in. I was proud of the way we controlled the ball at times and the way our defense played. It was a special night for our kids and it’s been a while since we had one like this.”
INDIVIDUAL STATISTISCS RUSHING – Batavia: Kabba 8-52, Moore 3-40, Giacopelli 4-24, Eberhardt 2-28, Fornek 7-15, Gaspari 8-9, Lindquist 2-8, Lyons 3-8, Berry 3-5, O’Kray 1- negative 1. Totals: 36-158. Larkin: Rice 8-37, Williams 6-19, Smith 6-1, Norwood 1 – negative 2, Newquist 9- negative 43. Totals: 30-24. PASSING – Batavia: Gaspari 13-13-0-205, O’Kray 2-3-0-26. Newquist 7-12-3-86. RECEIVING – Batavia: Gardner 4-57, Lindquist 2-57, Peskind 3-34, Sortino 1-30, Beckmann 1-20, Zeddies 1-11, Strittmatter 1-11, Gross 1-6, Fornek 1-5. Larkin: Villafane 4-42, Norwood 2-18, Whitehead 1-14.
TOTAL YARDS – Batavia: 389, Larkin 110.
Sophomore game: Batavia 49, Larkin 14