| BataviasBest.org
Thursday, September 11, 2014
After speaking to a few members of the Batavia football team along with their head coach last night, it is clear that the game versus Livonia is behind them and they are as ready as ever to take on the Wellsville Lions. The Blue Devils, who lost on a last-second TD pass to the Bulldogs on Monday, have put the past away and have been preparing like crazy for their Week 2 opponent.
Despite the loss, the Batavia offense began to click towards the end of last week’s contest. A big reason for its emergence, Greg Mruczek and Malachi Chenault found plenty of success attacking the defense all over the field, highlighted by this long bomb in the third quarter.
Mruczek and Chenault have developed a rapport that is second to none throughout their league, which has been established primarily during their extensive time together throughout the fall and winter sports seasons. The duo, who participate in both basketball and football at Batavia, have been teammates for quite some time and have a great playing relationship in both sports.
“Malachi and I have a lot of confidence in each other,” said Mruczek last night. “We also have a solid relationship both on and off the field and a lot of that has to do with us being around each other a lot in both football and basketball.”
“We are good friends, and are also good athletes in more than one sport together,” added Chenault. “Coach Briggs has lots of offseason stuff that we both went to, too.”
As the Blue Devils progress deeper into the 2014 season, the combination of their top wideout and their quarterback will be extremely important. After an 11 reception-88 yard-1 touchdown performance a week ago, they are certainly off to a hot start, and approaching the matchup with Wellsville this Saturday Batavia head coach Brennan Briggs expects nothing but the same.
“I still plan on hitting him (Chenault) with quick passes until they stop him,” said Briggs, “It forces them to bring another guy over, opening up things for some of the other talented guys we have. Getting the ball to our athletes in space is our way of running the football on the perimeter.”
While the Mruczek-Chenault connection has been successful as of late, and will be vital to the production of this offense going forward, the Blue Devils’ ability to run between the tackles with success is paramount.
Struggling to provide results throughout the game last week, the Batavia backfield will have to do a much better job in their matchup with Wellsville. Dom Mogavero and Anthony Gallo, who have received the vast majority of carries thus far, repeatedly ran into walls of defenders versus the Bulldogs and will need to be provided a better push from their offensive line in the future if they hope to contribute at a higher level.
“We harp on it every day,” said Batavia’s HC. “We’ve adjusted our lineman’s stances (this week) in hopes that they will get a better surge off the ball, but when it comes down to it, we just need to get nastier and sustain our blocks. It’s definitely been one of the focal points this week.”
Along with Briggs, as a member of the offensive line, Senior Gunner Rapone acknowledged his unit’s need of a boost.
“It’ll definitely make a mark on the game,” he said about the play of the offensive line, “We came out flat in the run game (vs Livonia) and we acknowledged that. I think that our line is capable of driving people off the ball, we just have to get in the groove of things and we will be fine.”
Rapone’s comments about the guys up front and their belief in each other also spilled over to more team-centric comments he made later in our conversation.
“We are ready to turn heads as a squad,” he added, ” And ready to prove that Batavia football can, and will make a difference. Obviously the loss was a tough thing to comprehend, but we battled the entire game (last week). The scoreboard did us no justice, however, I believe that we will come back. We are that type of team to respond to a negative – with a positive. We are excited to prove a lot of people wrong.”
Mruczek echoed Rapone’s comments earlier last night.
“I am very confident, and I think we have a great game plan offensively and defensively this week,” said the Batavia QB. “As long as we hit some timely passes on offense and pick up where we left off defensively against Livonia, I am very confident we will win the football game.”
Chenault seemed equally excited about the opportunity on Saturday.
“I’m pretty sure the whole team is with me when I say that we are ready to bounce back from that tough loss,” he said. “We’re gonna go out and just play our hardest and I believe things will work out in our favor.”
Briggs also protruded the utmost confidence in his team during our conversation on Wednesday.
“The overall attitude of these guys is incredible,” he said. “I believe they are a close-knit group of kids and it helps to have that after a tough loss. This week James Cryer and Greg Mruczek have done a really good job emerging as two of our leaders on this team. We are hungry. I sense this group coming out fast with a relentless attitude Saturday night. I’m excited for them.”
As you can clearly see, even with the heartbreaking loss on Monday, the entire Batavia team seems incredibly confident heading into Saturday night’s home opener. With such high expectations for themselves, along with a strong sense of belief instilled by their head coach and his coaching staff, I too think this is the week for the Blue Devils. Make sure to tune in tomorrow for the pre game scouting report as well as my prediction, and don’t forget to head down to Van Detta Stadium on Saturday night for what should be a great game.
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