Notre Dame proved to be the sternest test of the year for the Dundee Scotsmen, and who knows what might have been if not for a controversial non-call which resulted in the game’s first score.  In the end, the Fighting Irish gave undefeated Dundee all they could handle before coming up short in overtime. 

  Hard hitting was the order of the day. For most of the first half, Dundee and Notre Dame jockeyed for field position by trading punts. With 5:56 to go in the second quarter, Dundee quarterback Justin Schenk fired a long pass downfield. Dustyn Thompson, the intended receiver, shoved the Notre Dame defensive back with both hands, knocking him off balance. With the defender out of the picture, Thompson caught the ball uncontested and raced to the end zone. No flag was thrown, the point after was good and the half ended 7 - 0.

            In the third quarter Notre Dame’s Justin Shenk (not to be confused with Dundee’s Justin Schenk) blocked a punt and Cam McDonald recovered. The opportunity was squandered by a combination of timely defense and penalties. 

 At the 4:19 mark of the quarter Mike Raplee caught a quick strike from Justin Schenk and turned it into a 51 yard touchdown. After the PAT the Scotsmen led 14 - 0 and at this point Notre Dame began playing inspired defense. At 11:56 Kevin Schildwaster scored on a five yard run. Point after made it 14 – 7. The Scotsmen were stopped yet again by the Fighting Irish and Bochicchio drove his team toward the goal line. This time it was Mike Pratt carrying the ball into the end zone at the 4:10 mark.

 With time running out Dundee moved the ball to the Notre Dame ten but time ran out. Steven Webb scored on the third play of overtime and the Scotsmen went for two. The conversion was good and Dundee was up 22 – 14.

On their final possession, the Fighting Irish made it close, but an illegal procedure penalty nullified a completion inside the five and the resulting first down.         

 Offensively for Notre Dame Mark Schildwaster carried seventeen times for 60 yards. Mike Pratt carried thirteen times, also for 60 yards. Nick Bochicchio was 7 of 12 passing for 46 yards.

 For Dundee Steven Webb carried 14 times for 94 yards and quarterback Dustin Thompson was 7 of 14 passing for 140 yards, 2 Td’s and an interception.

Defensively for Notre Dame, Kevin Francis had 7.5 tackles, 1.5 for a loss and 3 assists. Craig Houseknecht amassed 6.5 tackles and 7 assists. Cam McDonald added 6 tackles and 6 assists.  

 The Le Roy football team turned the ball over five times, missed two field goals and nearly gave up a 21-0 lead, but managed to hold on and beat Letchworth 21-14 in the Section 5 Class C semifinals Saturday at Aquinas High School.

Andrew Alexander was a big reason why, rushing for 336 yards and two touchdowns on 32 carries.

The Oatkan Knights were dominant early with a high-powered rushing attack, but wound up seeing it turn into a game in the second half.

Le Roy marched right down the field and Andrew Alexander had his first touchdown of the game 3 minutes in on a 7-yard run.

After the Indians went three-and-out, Alexander broke off a 30-yard run and eventually scored on a 10-yard rush.

Le Roy had a 14-0 advantage after the opening period of play as Alexander picked up 139 on the ground in the first 12 minutes.

The game appeared to start becoming a blowout in the second quarter when Travis Fenstermaker scored on a 13-yard run. 

Alexander had an interception right before the half and the Oatkan Knights had a 21-0 lead.

The Oatkan Knights fumbled the ball away at the start of the second quarter, but Mike Humphrey saved a score when he picked off a pass.

Le Roy turned the ball over again when freshman Chris Nevinger caught a tipped pass and returned it 20 yards for a TD.
 

The Oatkan Knights coughed the ball up again, with the Indians recovering the ball. Quarterback Travis Tones scored a little bit later on a 1-yard TD run.

Le Roy had a shot to score early in the fourth quarter, but missed a second field goal attempt.

Letchworth failed to drive on its first series of the final frame, but forced Le Roy into a three-and-out.

Letchworth moved the ball into Le Roy territory and came up just short on a third down attempt, setting up a fourth-and-1. Nevinger took the handoff and was stopped inches short, allowing the Oatkan Knights to run out the clock and move on to the finals next week at PAETEC Park.

Tones finished with 103 yards rushing to lead the Indians.

Letchworth falls to 5-3 while Le Roy improves to 9-0.

So far, in looking over the latest campaign commercials uploaded to YouTube for the 26th Congressional race, they're really just a variation on a theme: Chris Lee shipped jobs to China (false) and Alice Kryzan is a "liberal trial lawyer" (silly).

Here's the latest from Lee's campaign:

The funny thing is, there is scant evidence from Lee, either in his campaign commercials, his web site or his public statements that he's anything other than just another Big Government Republican.  He hasn't named one wasteful federal program he would cut, said how he would reign in the out-of-control Pentagon budget or scale back the federal bureaucracy. On his web site makes a veiled reference to pork, but railing against earmarks is just nonsense.

Given that earmarks make up less than 5 percent of the federal budget, eliminating them will do little to end deficit spending.  Bigger, more drastic cuts than that need to be made. At least with earmarks, some of the wages convisicated by workers get returned to the districts the revenue came from.

The latest DCCC's ad attacking Lee is even less honest.

One line in the commercial that stands out: The press has called Lee's attacks on Kryzan "fiction."

My question is: Where? What press? Not any press I've been following.  For ourselves, we've bashed Lee for his trite attack ads, but we haven't used the word fiction.  It's hard to call something fiction that has no real substance to it.

UPDATE: Buffalo Bean interviewed Chris Lee. There isn't much to report from the Q&A. As usual, Lee doesn't say much. He doesn't divert from his talking points. 

 Today is the big day.

Notre Dame is playing Dundee at PAETEC Park at Noon in the Class D finals while Le Roy plays Letchworth and Oakfield-Alabama and Pembroke do battle in Class C semifinal action at Aquinas High School.

Keep checking in to The Batavian today for results, photos and video from these games.

If you found out a candidate for office had been fired from his first job out of college some 20 years ago, would it impact your voting decision?

What if the candidate admitted to "making a mistake" that led to the termination? What if that mistake involved breaking into company computers?

Well, those questions are more than theoretical in the 26th Congressional District race, and they apply to Republican Chris Lee.

The Buffalo News:

Lee was a young salesman with Ingram Micro, a computer products distributor that in 1989 was known as Ingram Micro D and operated from offices on Elmwood Avenue.

Lee, according to his co-workers at the time, somehow obtained a company credit manager’s password. Then, with that password, he raised the credit limits for some of his customers and the customers of other sales people, the employees said.

That way Lee could sell the customers more of the company’s products, on credit, before the billing system would flag their accounts for payment and halt further purchases.

It might have helped with sales, but it also put the company at greater risk if those customers failed to pay.

Since Lee has not admitted to the specific allegation, just that he made a mistake, let's be careful about taking the charges at face value. That said, if Lee did hack into a company computer, that's a crime (at least it is now, I don't know what the law was in 1989), and it is certainly unethical to falsify company records. Any employee who commits those acts deserves to be fired.

But what does a 20-year-old mistake tell us about Chris Lee today? Does it mean he is and forever will be an unethical person? Or is it possible that he did, as he says, learn from his mistake? If so, he might have evolved into a much more ethical person because of that transgression.

It's really impossible for us to look that deeply into another person's soul.

My recommendation is vote for the candidate that best represents your values and aspirations and not get too caught up in the character assassination games political parties like to play.

The relevance of this particular issue is tenuous at best. 

Yesterday, it looked like Jon Powers would be removed from the Working Families Party line, and Democratic congressional candidate Alice Kryzan would take his place.

Late last night, a Federal judge overturned the previous ruling, according to the Buffalo News.

The battle over the third-party line is significant because Powers garnered 36 percent of the vote in the September Democratic primary — and if he is barred from the ballot, those voters wouldn’t see the Iraq War veteran’s name on the ballot. In addition, voters turned off by the sharply negative campaign between Kryzan and Lee wouldn’t be able to cast a protest vote for Powers.

Kryzan and Lee campaign officials said they had not seen the details of Arcara’s decision and could not comment on it.

Interesting take that voters would cast protest votes for Powers if his name appears on the ballot.  Wouldn't it be just as likely that such voters would simply abstain in the race?

And why is this such a difficult issue for the courts? Powers moved out of state, so isn't it obvious his name should be taken off the ballot?

A recent poll gives Chris Lee about a 14 pecentage point lead in the race. I'm not sure the Powers line is going to add or substract that many votes for Kryzan.

Another bit of Alice Kryzan news: She'll be attending a roast beef dinner this evening in LeRoy. It's at the United Methodist Church at 5 p.m.  We know this because Kryzan campaign sends us a notice when Alice makes public appearances in Genesee County. We never get such notices from Lee's campaign, so we have no idea where you might go today or tomorrow to ask him any questions.

The Buffalo News reports that money has been pouring into both campaigns of the hotly contested 61st State Senate District race.

Joe Mesi, the Town of Tonawanda Democrat running to succeed retiring Sen. Mary Lou Rath, a Williamsville Republican, has received about $47,000 in donations the past 10 days or so. His biggest contribution — $9,000 — came from Robert Soros, son of billionaire liberal activist George Soros.

Michael H. Ranzenhofer of Amherst, Mesi’s Republican opponent, brought in $39,000, with big donations from New York City landlords and the National Rifle Association.

The Buffalo News reports that John E. Stocking, 48, of Pembroke was fatally shoot while hunting pheasant in Darien Lake State Park.

The shooting occured around 3 p.m. yesterday.

Authorities are investigating.

It was in the late forties when Walt & Dean Briggs were looking for a place to hunt deer. The brothers happened into a southern tier farmer who was looking to hunt pheasants and a deal was struck. Six decades later, I’m sitting in a tree stand, overlooking what was once the deer hunting realm of Walt and Dean.

               It’s the middle of the first week of bow season and on this day the woodland was damp and wet. It also made for silent footing. For that reason the doe was within twenty-five yards before I was aware of her presence. Trying not to make eye contact, I noticed her tongue was protruding from the side of her mouth. I also thought I heard her grunt. Then I heard a stick snap and the buck bounded from the foliage behind her. His antlers were unique, reaching upward rather than protruding around and outside the ears. I could see why the doe’s tongue was hanging out. Intent on breeding, he had obviously been dogging her for some time. She may have been approaching estrus but was neither ready nor willing at the time. The doe kept moving, the buck right on her tail. They exited the woods, entered a clover field and were soon out of sight.

            The next day was almost balmy by comparison, and the deer activity had slowed considerably. The whitetails may have been absent, but the woodland floor was alive with small rodents. Gray squirrels, red squirrels and chipmunks were running about gathering and stashing hickory nuts. Though they are in the squirrel family, a red squirrel’s behavior is sometimes akin to that of a weasel in that they are small and feisty. This day, on two separate instances, I watched a red squirrel in close pursuit of its larger cousin, the gray squirrel.

            In my fifty-eight years I had never seen so much squirrel activity in one location. It came as no surprise when I was told one of the locals keeps a pot of Brunswick stew simmering on the stove from October 1 to the end of deer season. 

            Nearly five hours after I first climbed into my stand, the coyotes began singing. I’ve heard coyotes before, but always at night. On this day they began their serenade before the sun touched the horizon - and it was in stereo. It sounded like there were at least three howling in unison, maybe more. And they weren’t far away.

             That evening an owl made its presence known. And unlike the coyotes, he was on schedule. With stars illuminating the nighttime sky, the hooter called out from a tree just the other side of the narrow stream which flows past the camp. The owl’s call was always the same, a single note, deep and sonorous. 

              On my first overnight to the cabin thirty-eight years ago, I remember the sound of flying squirrels scurrying across the tin roof at night. Walt, Dean and a few friends built that first cabin way back when, working with the materials available. Since that time the cabin has been enlarged, a deck has been added and a new roof put on. You don’t hear the flying squirrels on the roof any more. I’m sure they are still around and I’d be willing to bet the owl knows where to find them. 

             Walt & Dean have both passed on, but the tradition continues.

            The clearing where the cabin sits is now called Whitetail Hollow. As it was in Walt and Dean’s day it serves as a base camp and the numerous antlers and whitetail mounts adorning the cabins interior will attest to decades of memorable hunts.

            I’ve enjoyed the times spent at the Hollow, but not for the hunting alone. The football tradition here is storied as its deer hunting history.

             The five people who now own the property are also the core group of hunters at the Hollow. And they were, for me, the face of high school football in the sixties.

            The Briggs brothers, Jim and Tom, captained two of Danny Van Detta’s Blue Devil juggernauts. Tom in ’64 and Jimmy in ’68. 

              Buddy Houseknect, who won’t be in camp until mid-November, was recently elected to the Blue Devil Athletic Hall of Fame. Bud captained the ’67 Batavia grid squad.

            Playing our home games on Friday nights, we were able to watch Notre Dame High play on Saturday afternoons. On a Saturday afternoon in the autumn of ’66 I saw a halfback wearing number 23 sprint through defenders for a long touchdown. That is my earliest recollection of Jim “Gramps” Fanara. He captained the Little Irish the following year.

           Bayne Johnson was both quarterback and captain for the Little Irish in 1959. Bayne went on to quarterback the LeRoy town team of the early sixties. Like Jimmy Briggs, Bayne went on to become a highly successful football coach. Both were elected to the Section V Football Hall of Fame.

            Stepping back even further in time, Walt Briggs was no stranger to the grid iron. He too played for Danny Van Detta before going on to excel for the Batavia Essos, a local semi-pro team.

            I’ve barely scratched the surface here. But the next time I’m at the Hollow, We’ll throw another log in the wood burning stove, kick back and talk about one of our favorite topics - Pigskins & Whitetails. 

Here it is folks: Rolling Hills Paranormal Research Center—the tour! A three minute walk through the dank dark corridors and rooms of the old Genesee County Home. All of the sound is natural sound: audio picked up from the walk, which is why you will hear the photographer, Sonia, asking after the ghosts from time to time. As I said, we didn't run into any.

Sonia, however, picked up a few "orbs" on camera. What's an "orb," you ask. Well, orbs are supposed to be floating spirits that get picked up on camera when you take pictures. Not every floating ball of light is an orb, however. Sometimes it's just dust, says Lori Carlson, owner of Rolling Hills.

We'll leave it up to your discretion if you want to believe these blips of fuzzy light to the right here are spiritual orbs or just some dust motes that got too close to the lens.

You'll hear in the beginning of the video when Sonia says that she caught an orb on the window. That photograph is below, as well as another photograph taken a few seconds before with the orb in a different spot.

Anyhow, all orbs aside, Rolling Hills was a fascinating space, and I had no need of talking ghosts or ghost shapes to find the place eerie and disquieting and interesting, especially as an historic artifact. If you haven't already heard Lori talk about the history of the place, make sure and do that. This building has a lot of stories to tell, and you don't necessarily need ghosts to tell those stories. Some of the rooms speak well enough on their own.

Enough of my babble. Let's get to the show...

Here are those other orb pictures:

Here's a little something I put together after a visit to the Jell-O Gallery in Le Roy earlier this week. We only included part of the tour here in the hopes that folks might get interested and go visit the museum to see the rest.

One other quick thing... You may have noticed that the format of the videos have changed somewhat, and in my honest opinion, for the better. We're testing out a new video hosting site called blip.tv. I'm already a big fan. Blip has great video quality, as you can clearly see.You'll also notice that the screen is slightly bigger. If you visit the video on the Blip Web site, the screen is another three times as large as this! Simply visit thebatavian.blip.tv to see our videos in a larger screen format. If all goes well, and we don't have any problems, I'll go ahead and trasnfer our other older videos to Blip.

Enjoy!

Another member of the Batavia City Council has answered our questions on the topic of neighborhood improvement. Sam Barone sent us his responses earlier this week. We still have yet to hear back from several other members of Council.

Follow these links to access the previous three posts in this series:

• Part One: Charlie Mallow
• Part Two: Drunk and loud...
• Part Three: What to do...

Answers from Sam Barone:

How do you define a problem property?

A problem property is one that is constantly in the news for negative reasons, such as, it's a drug house, it attracts large crowds, litter is present, the yard is unkept, etc.

When is it decided that a property owner has been given enough warnings? Is that threshold defined? What action then follows? What action ought to follow?

Presently, the city has a procedure for addressing chronic problem homes by issuing three warning letters over a period of 15 days and then a possible court action. This procedure works but is too lengthy. We need a policy with a shorter span of time. I think a citation followed by a fine within two weeks would work. If the owner or tenant is responsive and shows cooperaion, the fine could be lifted. If the owner or tenant is unresponsive, fine them a second and third time; then court.

What are the best ways to take preventive action against absentee landlordism?

The best preventive action is twofold. It involves continued inspections and cooperation among various agencies. The city inspectors have to be on the same page with agencies, such as, DSS, HUD, Section 8 and others involved in placing people in homes. For example, everytime a tenant leaves a rental property, the city inspector should visit looking for code violations, such as, lack of smoke or fire alarms. Another example is a house listed under city properties as a three bedroom home. The city inspectors and dss should be aware of that to prevent overcrowding. I am aware of a three bedroom house where dss placed an adult with eight children in that home. The inside was a disaster.  Fortunately the occupants were finally remove after a city inspector was able to enter the home.

What is the difference between a slum lord and a lazy tenant or homeowner? Is there a difference if the outcome is the same? Ought they to be treated differently?

A lazy tenant can be educated and trained by city inspectors and landlords. A slumlord needs to be fined after every infraction.

When should a tenant and not the landlord be held responsible for the condition of a property, if ever?

The tenant should be held responsible for the rental but only after the landlord has explained to the tenant what the codes are both written and verbally.

The Genesee County Legislature will need to cut $1 million from its budget if it wants to avoid an increase in the tax rate, according to the Daily News. Of course, the county could also come up with another $1 million in revenue.

County Manager Jay Gsell proposed a few options to the Legislature, including the elimination of vacant positions and using as much as $500,000 of the fund balance.

Paul Mrozek puts together a pretty informative article that I would encourage folks to check out if they're looking for more details.

In other news, Dateline NBC Producer Michael Nardi paid a visit to Genesee County District Attorney Lawrence Friedman to talk on camera about the recently-convicted murderer Robert Kirkup. Dateline is producing a segment on Kirkup that will be aired sometime in the spring or summer of 2009.

The town of Batavia maintains a property tax rate of zero in its proposed 2009 budget, despite an increase of nearly $322,000 in the highway fund. Residents can attend a meeting at 6:45pm on Wednesday at the Batavia Town Hall to discuss the budget. The town of Albion will meet at 7:00pm Monday to discuss its proposed budget.

We encourage you to pick up a copy of the Daily News at your local newsstand. Or, better yet, subscribe at BataviaNews.com.

Scott Richardson, 19, of Rochester, was charged with criminal possession of a weapon with intent to use and unlawful possession of marijuana Wedensday following a traffic stop on Route 262 in Elba, Genesee County sheriff's deputies said.

Ericka M. Sprague, 23, of 307 Washington Ave., Batavia, was charged with petit larceny, and Christopher Say, 17, of no permanent address, was charged with criminal possession of stolen property Wedensday, city police said. Sprague is accused of stealing DVDs from a family member that Say then allegedly took to a local store in an attempt to sell them.

Dustin Say, 17, of Alexander, was charged with unlawful possession of marijuana Thursday, Genesee County sheriff's deputies said.

Don't forget! The Candlelight Cemetery Ghost Walk that was originally planned for this past Saturday at the Batavia Cemetery was rescheduled to tomorrow, so you still have one last chance to get out and meet the ghost of William Morgan, among others.

For those who missed it a couple weeks back, here's the video with all the info:

Security crews at Ralph Wilson Stadium will now respond to your text message in case of an emergency. Buffalo Bills fans have only to text the word 'BILLS' along with their seat number to 78247 to summon security. This way, if that annoying Brett Favre fan sitting next to you this Sunday gets too rowdy, all you have to do is whip out the cell phone.

This is a huge weekend for area high school football as five teams are still alive. The Batavian will have coverage at every game featured this weekend.

All of the previews are done, and all have video. Check them out.

Letchworth vs. Le Roy  

Dundee vs. Notre Dame

Attica vs. Bath

Pembroke vs. Oakfield-Alabama

Here it is, our penultimate video in the countdown to Halloween:

 Pembroke (7-1) vs. Oakfield-Alabama (8-0)

4 p.m. Saturday, at Aquinas

Here we go again.

Oakfield-Alabama and Pembroke is the best Genesee Region League rivalry and the buildup for the regular season game was huge, the game was even better than could be imagined and now the two powerhouse squads are matching up in the Section 5 Class C semifinals.

Tim Smith scored a late touchdown and Brad Riner ran in a two-point conversion as the Hornets won the regular season contest 25-24 in Week 6, giving fans the best show in the rivalry game's history.

O-A went on to beat Holley in the final week of the regular season and won the league title outright, going undefeated for the first time since 1986. Pembroke beat Attica in the final week of the season and finished one point away from the title and a perfect season.

The Hornets thumped Dansville 63-34 in the opening round of the playoffs and the Dragons had a big second half to beat Bishop Kearney 32-12. Now the scene shifts to Rochester, as the game will be played on the turf at Aquinas High School.

Smith and Riner were the stars in the first game and will be the focal point of the O-A offense yet again as the two GR all-stars are having monster seasons.

Smith has 112 rushing attempts for 971 yards and 15 touchdowns while Riner has tallied 817 yards and 12 scores on 108 rushes. Joe Natalizia, Jason Stanley and Josh Athoe will also see the ball.

The Hornets didn't have to throw the ball much in the regular season game, but if Pembroke is successful in stuffing the run, look for A.J. Kehlenbeck to put the ball in the air. The quarterback has a great arm but has had not had to use it much this year because of O-A's run-first approach.

Kehlenbeck has thrown to seven different receivers while completing 18-of-41 attempts for 271 yards and six touchdowns.

Some people might give Pembroke's offense the advantage because of the playing surface with speedster Andrew Wright and cutting-runner Mike Dibble.

Wright can do it all and has excelled on special teams, running the ball and catching it. He is looking forward to running on turf and adding to his 896 rushing yards with 10 touchdowns and 340-plus receiving yards with three scores.

Dibble is over 800 yards rushing with 10 touchdowns.

Quarterback David Kleckler and tight end Ken Babcock are a great passing duo, with Kleckler completing 33-of-62 attempts for 733 yards and 11 scores.

The Dragons are dealing with some injury issues, most notably starting center Josh Hanel, who is out for the game. O-A has some minor injury issues, but comes in mostly healthy.

Oakfield-Alabama is ranked eighth in the state while Pembroke comes in at No. 17.

One of our readers this morning turned our attention to an article from the Washington Post, which claims that nationwide "struggles" faced by Sen. John McCain are causing problems for Republicans in Congressional races around the country.

Particularly difficult for Republican prospects is that McCain appears to be trailing badly in several moderate suburban districts across the Midwest and New England, while he is doing worse than President Bush did in rural conservative districts.

[...] 

Democrats hold a 51 to 49 edge in the Senate when the two independents who caucus with them are factored in, and a 236 to 199 House majority. Rothenberg predicted that Democrats will pick up 27 to 33 House seats, and make gains of six to nine seats in the Senate. The Cook Political Report, another independent political forecaster, suggests that Democrats will net 23 to 28 House seats, and pick up seven to nine Republican-held Senate seats.

Normally, this would be a topic for our Nation & World section, but this article calls out our very own 26th District as a potential upset in a region that many would have considered a GOP stronghold.

In New York's 26th District, internal GOP polls show McCain trailing (Sen. Barack) Obama by a narrow margin, sources said. Bush won the Buffalo-based district by 12 percentage points in 2004. The race to replace retiring Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.) is considered a tossup.

In that race, Democrat Alice Kryzan will square off against Republican Chris Lee, who himself has been criticized for a lack of visibility since getting the Republican nod with little effort earlier this year.

A post on the Albany Project today takes up this same issue. It turns out the Democratic Congressional Compaign Committee recently pumped $475,340 into the race for the 26th, compared with the $27,918 put up by the National Republican Congressional Committee. That same post claims that the race has now been predicted to swing to the Democrats.

What do you think? Could the GOP lose their grip on the 26th District come Tuesday? Does a lead by Obama equate to an advantage for Kryzan? What are the factors that will decide this vote one way or another Tuesday?