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Batavia battles back, tops Notre Dame
| Mary Beth Nolan~For Sun-Times Media
Updated: October 28, 2011 11:56PM
Facing a stunning 28-7 deficit at the half, Batavia football coach Dennis Piron had a simple message for his kids Friday.
“The story in the paper tomorrow could be the unbelievable comeback that Batavia made, or a 9-0 team falls to a 5-4 team in the first round,” Piron said. “I don’t think they liked the sound of that.”
Clearly, the top-seeded Bulldogs wanted to flip that script in the second half.
After punting on their first possession of the second half, the Bulldogs scored four consecutive touchdowns, all on passes from senior Noel Gaspari, to come back and stun the Dons, 35-28, in the first round of the Class 6A playoffs.
“We went into halftime and I said that I just do not want to be done,” Batavia senior tight end Cole Gardner said. “I just love all of these guys so much. We just didn’t want to be done and we said we can’t do this, we have to keep going.”
The 6-foot-6 Gardner was a beast in the second half. He caught three of Gaspari’s four touchdown tosses and finished with six catches for 110 yards overall. Gardner’s first touchdown grab, a five-yarder on a fourth-down play with 6:46 left in the third, capped a nine-play, 87-yard drive that cut the lead to 28-14.
After forcing a Notre Dame punt, Gaspari found Zach Strittmatter for a 26-yard touchdown with 13 seconds left in the third to cut the lead to 28-21. On the ensuing kickoff, Batavia booted it short and Notre Dame dropped it, allowing the Bulldogs to get the ball right back. Five plays later, Gaspari found Gardner from 13 yards out and suddenly the game was tied, 28-28.
“What leadership from our top guys,” Piron said. “They never lost their composure on the sidelines. Guys weren’t freaking out. There was none of that baby stuff. It was young men acting like men and keeping it together. I’m very proud of that.”
After another three-and-out from Notre Dame, Batavia completed the comeback. Gardner caught his third touchdown of the half, this one from 12 yards out, with 6:14 left. Three plays later, Mike Moffatt picked off Notre Dame quarterback Nick Pieruccini in the end zone. The Dons never saw the ball again.
“There’s no sense in going through each one of them, but there were a series of mistakes that we made on defense and we didn’t keep the ball in our hands on offense,” Notre Dame coach Mike Hennessey said. “Credit to them for what they came out and did in the second half.”
Pieruccini was nearly unstoppable in the first half. He was 15 of 16 for 177 yards and three touchdowns as the Dons held leads of 21-0 and 28-7. Chris James added a 79-yard touchdown run in the first half.
Gaspari dominated the second half, however. He finished with 301 yards through the air all told, and his Bulldogs live to fight another week.
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