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Blue Devil turnovers prove costly against Le Roy

By Destin Danser

The Batavia Blue Devils travelled to Le Roy last night to take on the Knights. It was a close game from the start, with each team scoring a touchdown on its opening possession. Le Roy's offensive line became a key factor early on by creating some huge holes in the defense for Tommy McQuillen to run through, allowing him to run for 336 yards on the night, and score six touchdowns (school record).

Batavia's offense was able to keep the score close for most of the game, however QB Brett Scheuerlein threw three very costly interceptions that may have cost them the game. One was intercepted by Tommy McQuillen, and the other two by Ethan Olsowski. Le Roy's offense scored touchdowns as a result of all three interceptions. Both teams appeared strong, and the game could have easily gone the other way if Batavia had maintained better control of the ball.

In the end, Le Roy came out on top, 48-35.

Andy Lowe and Marcus Mistersare also scored touchdowns for Le Roy. John Difante, James Soggs and Justin Washington scored for the Blue Devils. 

Batavia is now 1-3, and will travel to Hornell next week. Le Roy is 2-2 and will host Perry at home next Friday night.

david scheuerlein

Mr. Dansler,
The name is spelled Scheuerlein. And while i will admit that the 3 interceptions proved costly,to pin the blame on Brett is shortsighted at best. Tommy McQuillen was phenomenal as was the Leroy offensive line. When a team runs for over 400 yards as Leroy did you stand very little chance of winning. You failed to mention Brett throwing 3 touchdowns while contributing as the starting safety on defense.
I understand criticism comes with the position of QB but if we both watched the same game i dont see how you could come away with your conclusion. How about praising the Batavia and Leroy players for playing 100% till the final whistle? Or how about mentioning the great games by James Soggs(150 + rushing yards) or John DiFante(2 receiving tds and 1 passing td).
I guess my point is..why always accentuate the negative? These are high school athletes competing for no more than love of the game.
Thank you for your time.
David Scheuerlein

Sep 24, 2011, 7:25pm Permalink
Thomas Mooney

I think the write up was spot on . You can't point out all the positives for every game for every player . People that were not there would be confused on how Batavia lost the game if all they did was point out the positives of Batavia . You are a great parent for having the feelings you do about the performance of your son and his team.But they lost and the interceptions (turnovers in general) were a big part of why Batavia lost .Of couse the great play of your son and the rest of the Batavia team kept the game in hand till the end .

Sep 26, 2011, 8:10am Permalink
david scheuerlein

"spot on"???? were you at the game Mr.Mooney? My point is that the article is not "spot on" Batavia scored a late touchdown to make the score seem a little closer than it actually was. Maybe we should start writing about how many errors a shortstop had during a baseball game or how many times the leadoff batter struck out. How about we start posting kids failing grades in the paper? why not, they post the honor and merit roll. We wouldnt want people getting confused. There is nothing wrong with accentuating the positive. And to suggest that one player cost a team a game takes away from the Leroy victory. And make no mistake, Leroy was the better team this past Friday night.
David Scheuerlein

Sep 26, 2011, 6:39pm Permalink
Edward Henry

Have to agree totally with Mr. Scheuerlein. Everything press-wise today seems to be bash this, bash that..."keeping it real" right, Mr. Mooney? It is a game. It was an entertaining game with lots of scoring. The game goes on for nearly 3 hours and the main capsule a 'writer' takes from it is that interceptions blew it for Batavia? Plenty of kids on both sides of the ball played well - concentrate on that. Turnovers are part of the game...such is life. How many kids step up and play the tough position of QB? Easier to hop online and drop some disparaging remarks than put in the work and effort.

I operate the LeRoy football web site. Myself, when I wrote articles for the site I did not name names regarding miscues by either LeRoy or their foes. It wasn't necessary. The players feel bad enough when something goes awry. It is just as easy to write "the Knights turned it over late in the game" and the like. You can write about a turnover without tying the player's name to it for eternity in the archives which nowadays serves as fodder for gutless negative commentary on social media sites. People are merciless when it comes to winning and losing in scholastic sports. This bunk about not knowing how a game is lost if we only talk about the well played aspects of a contest? LeRoy had the ball for 36 minutes out of 48 against Avon and had a 20-7 edge in first downs. They also lost by 14. I think a knowlegable fan can put together from an article that stats do not tell the whole story in how and why a game is won or lost.

Mike Pettinella wrote a nice recap of the Batavia-LR contest in the Batavia Daily News. He mentions the INTs too; they were indeed part of the game. But, because he put a lot more effort in his writeup to recap the entire contest, it does not come across that one player blew it for Batavia...because one player did not lose the game for the Blue Devils. To those in attendance, it seemed more like 11 defensive players and a host of coaches had a tough go at trying to stop LeRoy RB Tommy McQuillen who ran for a school record 325 yards and 6 TDs.

Sep 27, 2011, 3:57pm Permalink

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