Batavia football player Matthew Huizinga named St. Charles Bank & Trust Athlete of the Week

Matthew Huizinga

Batavia football

Senior

What he did: Huizinga carried the ball only four times, but two found the end zone in Batavia’s 21-7 victory against Geneva.

Batavia senior running back Matthew Huizinga made the most of his opportunities against Geneva on Sept. 30. He carried the ball four times, but scored on two of those rushes to give the Bulldogs an early first half lead. He also had a 24-yard kickoff return and had two tackles on defense. Huizinga, the St. Charles Bank & Trust Athlete of the Week, does a little bit of everything for the Batavia football team. He spoke with Kane County Chronicle correspondent Chris Casey to talk about his performance against Geneva and more.

Casey: What did you see on your first touchdown, a 39-yard run?

Huizinga: It was a cross fire run, and my lineman did an amazing job giving me a big hole to run through. I saw it and just took off.

Casey: Did you expect anything less than a hard-fought win against a rival like Geneva?

Huizinga: It’s always fun to play in this rivalry, honestly. We had some chances to score more than we did, but made a couple mistakes. You never know in these kinds of games, but I’m glad we got the win.

Casey: Talk about how you guys bounced back from the loss to St. Charles East.

Huizinga: When we lost to East, it got us down. But at the same time, I think it kind of helped us. I don’t think we wanted our confidence to get up too high and that might have happened if we stayed undefeated. A loss makes us want to fight harder and I think we did that tonight.