Friday night, lights are on, stadium is packed and it's Homecoming Week. It couldn't have been a better scenario for the Batavia Blue Devils football team as they upset visiting Penfield 20-14 Friday night in high school football action for their first victory of the season.
Senior running back, Ryan Pyatt led the offense for Batavia by rushing for a career high of 124 yards on 17 carries in his first varsity start.
Quarterback Aaron Gugel rushed for 73 yards and a touchdown on 15 carries and he completed 4 of 10 passes for 44 yards and a touchdown.
Sophomore wide-out Justin Washington had two receptions for 34 yards including a 10-yard touchdown reception. Mitch Francis added two receptions for 10 yards and another reception on a 2-point conversion. Francis also had a big day on defense by intercepting a pass and returning it for a 70-yard touchdown. He also had a kick return for 45 yards.
Kyle King led the defense for Batavia with 9 tackles, 2 for a loss. Kris Jones added 7 tackles, 2 for a loss. John DiFante added 4 tackles for Batavia and recorded an interception as well.
Nick Costanza scored for Penfield on a 32-yard run and David Roque caught a 37-yard reception from from QB Kyle Covley to give Penfield their 14 points.
Batavia improves to 1-3 while Penfield falls to 0-4.
Thanks for the coverage of
Thanks for the coverage of our hometown team, Tim. Without you we would have no coverage of Batavia football.
That's a bit of a stretch
That's a bit of a stretch don't you think? Last night's Batavia vs. Penfield game takes up the entire top half of the Sports Page in today's Daily News and both WBTA and WCJW covered it this AM as I was driving to LSP.
Kevin's right. This isn't
Kevin's right. This isn't exactly coverage, it's a recap. Howard told us Friday he wasn't going to send anyone to cover this game. Anyway, congrats Blue Devils and extra congrats to a certain DE, you know who you are.
Howard just sent me an email,
Howard just sent me an email, complaining that I was 'dissing' Tim Walton, the author of this post. My original post definitely wasn't a dig at Tim. It was merely an agreement with another poster. If Tim hadn't put this up, there wouldn't have been any mention at all of Batavia High's victory on The Batavian.
It was a great game! The
It was a great game! The Band, Chorus, and the Cheerleaders all did a wounderfull job. It was good to see all the hard work the players and Coaches have been doing start to pay off.
Too bad, if there was a game not to be covered, this was not the one to miss.
You know, if something -- not
You know, if something -- not just sports -- isn't being covered, and you think it should be, you can always step in and cover it, just as Tim did. Anybody can submit local stories.
Howard and Billie cover the
Howard and Billie cover the news in Batavia and the surrounding communities every bit as thoroughly as all of the reporters for The Daily News combined, IMO.
Getting up to the minute news, for FREE, is a gift. It's time complaints stop about what people don't like about this site. Personally, I LOVE The Batavian! Keep up the good work Howard and Billie!
Thanks, Lori.
Thanks, Lori.
Howard, You might solve the
Howard,
You might solve the problem at hand if you officially designate everyone junior reporters for The Batavian.
This way everyone will do what Tim and others already do.
They wont have to sit and wonder if you are going to cover something. Or complain when you don't cover everything.
I would venture to say that Howard is still human and has not secured the technology to create full grown clones of himself. So a little community involvement would be welcome in my opinion.
Jeremiah, everybody who
Jeremiah, everybody who creates an account has the ability to post articles. We used to push a lot more what in the industry is called "citizen journalism," but early on we weren't getting a lot of that -- but there's whole news sites out in other communities that rely heavily on reader contributions. It's not unheard of.
I like some people don't have
I like some people don't have the talent, skills or the time to write articles. I do enjoy reading The Batavian and I do support many of the advertisers on The Batavian. I would think feedback on what people like myself like to see on The Batavian would be important to the growth and future of The Batavian.
Being told to do it myself if I want to see it or go to anouther news outlet for coverage. Can't be all that good for The Batavian being most people like my self will go else where for the articles and coverage we would like to see.
I understand no one can be in two or three places at the same time and coverage outside of Batavia may draw more people to The Batavian. If you can use the comments people leave as a indicator of the interest a article generates. Batavia high school football has more interest than any of the other schools.
Bryant, I appreciate the
Bryant, I appreciate the feedback, however, for as long as I've been doing The Batavian, the consistent complaint has been "you only ever cover Batavia HS (or Notre Dame)," even though that statement was not entirely true. This is the first time anybody has ever complained about not covering a Batavia game.
It doesn't seem realistic to be accused of not listening to readers on this topic when this is the first time anybody has complained about not covering a Batavia game.
Further, the real point isn't "go cover Batavia yourself" -- it's that we can't be in two places at once most of the time. If we had covered Batavia, we could have really used somebody to cover Pembroke, because that was an important game.
What I'm trying to say is I think you're comment "being told to do it myself" is misplaced -- there's always something to cover. We can't cover it all. Nobody in town covers it all. So the opportunity for you -- or others -- if you want -- is to provide coverage, too. It's not unheard of, as I said.
Howard, Could you still
Howard,
Could you still make up some official looking "junior Batavian reporter" stickers/badges?