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Oatkan Knights topple Batavia Blue Devils 27-13 with great team effort in '08 opener Alexander rushes for 114 yards; QB Fenstermaker hooks up with star wideout Mike Humphrey for 2 TDs; Wyckoff and Schwab provide late heroics with TD and INT respectively. |
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Game
recap courtesy of Bilko "First Down" Pangrazio
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BATAVIA
- Coach Brian Moran notched victory 159 with an eye-opening 27-13 win
at Van Detta stadium over the host Batavia Blue Devils. The young Knights
led by Travis Fenstermaker and Andrew Alexander on offense, and John
Scheuing and Mike Humphrey on defense, made the old axiom, "we
just reload, not rebuild", a staple in the rich LeRoy football
tradition. Coach Andrew
Paladino's defense continued its strong play as did defensive back Mike
Humphrey who had a nice interception and return negated by a penalty,
but the defense held on downs and LeRoy took over at it's own 13. Running
back Tyrone Wyckoff then put the Knights up 27-6 with an 8-yard dash
to the Blue Devils' end zone. This final tally by the Knights was set
up by a sweet Wyckoff dash of 37 yards. |
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Game
recap courtesy of Brian Hillabush - Batavia Daily News Sports
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| BATAVIA
- It's safe to say that the way Travis Fenstermaker and Mike Humphrey
hooked up last season in taking the Le Roy football team to the state
semifinals was no fluke. The passing duo hooked up on two touchdown passes
as the Oatkan Knights beat host Batavia 27-13 in front of about 2,000
fans at VanDetta Stadium Friday. "We pretty much play football all year round," Humphrey said. "We go out and play catch at Hartwood Park in the summer every Wednesday and we've been playing together since we were eight years old. He's always been the quarterback and I've always been the receiver." Fenstermaker finished the game 7-of-9 passing for 80 yards with the two touchdowns, but had an early interception that gave the Blue Devils an early lead. On Le Roy's fourth play of the game, Fenstermaker dropped back and threw into triple coverage, where Batavia's Troy Ireland picked off the pass. "I was pretty nervous at the start because everybody thought we were going to lose," Fenstermaker said. "We just had to prove ourselves. I threw that interception and then we stopped them on defense, so it was all good." The Blue Devils failed to pick up a first down and had to settle for a 25-yard field goal by Ireland. Le Roy bounced back from allowing the early score with an eight minute long drive that was basically running back Andrew Alexander picking up first down after first down, with a 28-yard run by Fenstermaker thrown in the mix. The Oatkan Knights scored on a 5-yard run by the quarterback. "He moved the sticks," Le Roy coach Brian Moran said of Alexander, who rushed for 121 yards on 19 carries. "You have to remember we are playing a Batavia team with some very good athletes in the secondary. We had to just keep moving the chains and he did that." Batavia marched down the field behind the rushing of Anthony D'Aurizio, whose biggest run of the drive was 14 yards. The Blue Devils started at their own 39 and marched inside the Le Roy 5-yard line before momentum was stopped when Batavia's Joe Pedro injured his leg and had to be helped off the field. Batavia tacked on three more points on a 23-yard field goal by Ireland. "(D'Aurizio) ran very physical in the game," Batavia coach Dan Geiger said. "I liked the way he was running the ball and Rob (Williams) was doing a great job of blocking." Alexander and the Oatkan Knights marched down the field again and advanced to the Batavia 8-yard line before a procedure penalty pushed them back to the 23. Batavia was whacked with a costly pass interference call on the next play, putting the ball back to the 11. But Alexander coughed up the ball and Batavia's Vinny Pedro recovered, allowing his team to run out the clock and go into halftime trailing just 7-6. After the break, Fenstermaker and Humphrey got going. The two hooked up on a 33-yard scoring strike midway through the third quarter, giving Le Roy a 14-6 advantage. Moran credits the better second half play to his young players filling the holes left by the graduated stars of a year ago. "I thought our kids played very well today. I was impressed," Moran said. "We had some younger kids come in and they were nervous. We made some mistakes early but we played as a team." Both teams went three-and-out and Batavia's next drive came to a quick end as Joe Schwab intercepted a Joe Canzoneri pass and returned it 28 yards, down to the Batavia 10. Fenstermaker tossed a 5-yard TD pass to Humphrey three plays later. Humphrey actually intercepted a Canzoneri pass on the next Batavia drive, but a roughing the passer call erased the pick. The Blue Devils failed to take advantage of the penalty and wound up throwing a pass for -1 yard on a 4th-and-7 to kill the drive. Le Roy then marched down the field and Tyrone Wyckoff had a 39-yard run that set up his own 8-yard scoring run. Le Roy went for two and the run failed. Batavia did have a scoring drive in the final minutes of the game as Canzoneri and D'Aurizio hooked up on a 3-yard TD pass. Canzoneri went 7-of-19 for 64 yards and D'Aurizio finished with 68 rushing yards on 14 carries. Rob Williams - who was Batavia's top offensive threat as a quarterback last season - only had seven rushing attempts for 14 yards. "It was a matter of what formation we were in and what they were doing defensively," Geiger said of Williams' limited touches. "We did what we felt would allow us to attack their defense." Batavia starts 0-1 and will host Palmyra-Macedon next Friday night. "It's not here we go again because we have a great group of kids," Geiger said. "These kids have shown their character and when things go back they get back up get back in their spot and do it better." Le Roy begins defending its Livingston Conference and Section 5 Class C title with a victory and will host Letchworth next week. "It's always nice to beat Batavia because they are our second biggest rival after Cal-Mum," Humphrey said. "We wanted to come out 1-0 instead of 0-1 obviously. It is a good win to start the season." |
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