Sports

There is further proof that being a solid role player for the Batavia High basketball team is a great place to start if you want to get into college coaching.

Last week we reported that Joe Zinni had recently accepted an assistant coaching position with Saginaw Valley State University women's basketball, and now Russ Phillips is moving up the ladder at his college alma-matter, SUNY Cortland. He will be serving as the top assistant to coach Tom Spanbauer this winter.

Phillips led Batavia's team on the floor as a point guard and that knowledge along with the work ethic it takes to play BHS coach Buddy Brasky's high-octane pressure defense has translated well into his coaching career.

 Phillips went right from his playing days to coaching when he started working as an assistant coach for the Batavia jayvee program in 2004. 

He picked up valuable experience as an assistant with both the jayvee and varsity squads at BHS for two years. During that time he also was the head coach for four different Rochester Area Players AAU teams. He also worked as a member of the Board of Directors for RAP where he was involved in planning AAU tournaments.

Phillips has also been Brasky's assistant coach for the Western Scholastic boys basketball teams at the Empire State Games for the past two summers.

At Cortland, he got his start in college coaching as a team manager during the 2006-2007 season, where he handled film work along with game and practice preparation.

He was promoted to student-assistant coach last year.

His work in assisting Spanbauer, scouting, coordinating practice and game day video along with breaking down statistics earned him the top assistant position.

Phillips appears to be on the fast-track to achieving his career goal of being a head basketball coach for a college team.

 The Oakfield-Alabama football team has had the luxury of giving the backups plenty of playing time in the first three weeks of the season.

Not so much on Saturday as the Hornets had their first test of the season in Notre Dame, not passing until the second half. O-A held off a late charge and won 28-6.

Tim Smith actually returned the opening kickoff just over 50 yards to the Notre Dame 29-yard line. Notre Dame's Craig Houseknecht sacked A.J. Kehlenbeck on a pass attempt, but a couple of mid-distance runs moved the ball down to the 2-yard line.

This was where the first half tone was set.

Oakfield-Alabama fumbled the ball away and Cam McDonald fell on it to give the Fighting Irish possession. 

After Kevin Schildwaster popped a 53-yard run, O-A had a sack and fumble that was recovered by Noah Seward.

Notre Dame's defense stiffened up and caused a three-and-out, then ND started moving the ball as Nick Bochicchio found Kevin Francis on a 24-yard pass.

At this point the Irish fans were thinking upset, while the O-A fans were starting to sweat with a 0-0 score after a period of play.

But the Hornets stopped ND's offense and forced a punt. Then Notre Dame returned the favor and made O-A punt.

With just a few minutes left in the first half, Smith took over.

He killed a Notre Dame drive with an interception, had a 24-yard run and then scored on a 6-yarder to make the score 7-0 at the half.

Notre Dame received the second half kickoff and was moving the ball. Bochicchio hooked up with Francis on a 16-yard pass, that was moved to the O-A 28-yard line because of a late hit penalty.

This time the Fighting Irish tried a halfback option that was intercepted by Smith at the 4 and returned to the 40.

Smith capped off this drive with a 21-yard TD run.

Oakfield-Alabama took firm control of the game after a Notre Dame punt when Smith broke a 31-yard run on a fourth-and-1. He scored just moments into the fourth quarter on an 8-yard run.

A Seward sack put Notre Dame into a fourth-and-very long deep in its own territory, so Matt Thompson had to come on and punt.

Smith had a 20-yard return and the Hornets started a drive at the ND 26.

Jason Stanley finished off the O-A scoring with a 21-yard run.

With just five minutes left, Bochicchio got hot.

He had completions to Francis, Schildwaster and Gianni Zambito before hitting Mike Pratt on a swing pass that he took 25 yards for a touchdown.

Derek Hicks blocked the extra point attempt.

The onside kick attempt was recovered by Cody Proefrock and ND was still alive with 3:41 left on the clock.

But a couple of plays into the drive, Hicks picked off a pass to put an end to the game.

Notre Dame falls to 2-2 and will play at Holley Friday nights as the Hawks are going to rent lights for their homecoming game.

Smith - who rushed for 185 yards on 25 carries - and the Hornets improve to 4-0 and move on to play in Attica next week for the Blue Devils' homecoming game. Then comes the annual game with Pembroke that always has Genesee Region League title implications.

 The Alexander football team should probably ask for lights.

The Trojans won their first game of the season as they played under lights on a Friday night at home for the first time in over 20 years.

Alexander Central School rented lights for the game. The Trojans usually play their home games on Saturday afternoons.

Lucas Czechowski booted a 30-yard field goal with eight minutes left to give Alexander a 9-8 victory over Holley in a Genesee Region League contest.

"These juniors have been waiting," said Dave Radley, who won his first game as a head coach. "They work hard and every day is a challenge. They had three tough opponents to start and tonight we battled an evenly matched team. The good thing is that we seemed to be in better condition in the second half. Our defense stepped up and stopped them."

The defense held the Hawks on a fourth-and-2 before the drive that set up Czechowski's field goal and Jordan Leitten sealed the victory with an interception with 20 seconds left.

Ryan Piechowki had 16 solo tackles to go with his 48 yards rushing and Jay Schaefer gained 127 yards rushing.

Alexander is now 1-3 while Holley dips to 0-4.

 When the Le Roy football team played Canisteo-Greenwood last season, they were up 56-0 at the half.

A much improved Redskins team gave Le Roy a game for a while before the Oatkan Knights started putting up points in winning 36-0, giving the homecoming crowd an offensive and defensive show.

It was the 40th consecutive win at Hartwood Park for Le Roy, which last lost at home to Hornell, 7-0, in 1998.

C-G failed to move the ball down the field on its first drive of the game with a shotgun/option offense that was later making Le Roy defenders miss.

But the first drive didn't lead to much of anything.

Quarterback Mark Ahearn tried finding a receiver on the left side of the field, but Mike Humphrey - who led the state in interceptions last year - picked off the pass with a high vertical jump.

Le Roy quickly capitalized on the drive that started at the C-G 11 when Travis Fenstermaker scored on a 1-yard keeper.

This time, Canisteo-Greendwood moved the ball to midfield before the Le Roy defense forced a punt.

After Fenstermaker hooked up with Humphrey on a short pass, Andrew Alexander busted off a 46-yard touchdown run, giving Le Roy a 14-0 first quarter advantage.

The Redskins marched again, but Humphrey put the drive to an end with another interception. He returned this one from the Le Roy 15 to the 49.

Fenstermaker had a 16-yard run and found Humphrey on a 26 yard pass, setting up a 6-yard TD run for Alexander.

Le Roy faked the extra point on this one and Humphrey - who is also the holder - found John Schueing for the two point conversion.

The Oatkan Knights added one more score in the first half when Fenstermaker found Humphrey on a 20-yard TD pass. It was the sixth time this season the two have connected on touchdown passes.

Le Roy's only second half touchdown was a 1-yard touchdown run by John Casper.

Fenstermaker went 7-of-12 for 127 yards and Humphrey hauled in six receptions for 97 yards.

Alexander rushed for 152 yards and the two scores on 18 carries as Le Roy improves to 4-0 and prepares for a tough stretch.

The Oatkan Knights will face Avon, Caledonia-Mumford and Hornell to finish off the regular season.

 The Batavia football team is having a long, but great bus ride home from Midlakes.

That's because the Blue Devils scored 28 fast points and beat the host squad 41-7 Friday night.

"It would be a very long ride home without the W," Batavia coach Dan Geiger said. 

Vinny Pedro returned the opening kickoff 84 yards to start the ball rolling.

Midlakes then marched down to the Batavia 1-yard line, but fumbled the ball.

Rob Williams picked it up and took it to the house.

After Batavia got the ball back, Williams had the carry on Batavia's first offensive play of the game. He took it 55 yards for the score.

Again, Batavia got the ball back and Williams got another carry. He took this one 85 yards for the TD.

"The great this is that Rob ran behind Todd Logsdon and Adam Hausfelder on both plays," Geiger said. 

Anthony D'Aurizio had a touchdown run and Chip Chapman returned a fumble 40 yards for a score.

Williams finished the game with five rushes for 150 yards and two touchdowns with D'Aurizio gaining 91 yards with the score on just eight carries.

Pedro gained 75 yards on 15 attempts as Batavia picked up 336 yards and three TDs on 35 attempts as a team.

Hausfelder had nine tackles, Logsdon had eight and Devonte Rolle made four stops and intercepted a pass.

Batavia (2-2) will play Penn Yan next week.

 Just a reminder, we have two big local games tonight and I will be doing coverage of both.

Le Roy is looking to improve to 4-0 and get ready for a stretch of big games to end the regular season with a game against Canisteo-Greenwood at Hartwood Park.

I will be at this game with my camera and video camera to show you what the Oatkan Knights are all about.

Batavia is traveling to Midlakes and trying to even up at 2-2. Coach Dan Geiger will be calling me after the game and I will be relaying the details as soon as possible.

Make sure you check back to The Batavian tonight for the fastest, most in-depth coverage possible of these games.

Bob DiCesare's column today for the Buffalo News is about Dave Wellenzohn, the job he did for the Batavia Muckdogs and his quest for another position with a minor league baseball team.

“The minute Rochester came in they pretty much stripped me of all authority, which was fine,” he said. “It made financial sense to run it out of Rochester. But I was still the GM. I handled all the baseball ops and I was pretty much the face of the team. I had my radio show and all that so that was good for me because I knew I was pretty much putting together my resume for the next job.”

Wellenzohn promised himself that he wouldn’t let his state of limbo undermine his passion for the sport. He got on the field before Batavia home games, microphone in hand, and worked to stir up the crowd. He drove seven hours to Lowell, Mass. for the Muckdogs semifinal playoff opener, then turned around after the three-hour game and drove straight back to Batavia. No wonder the team’s booster club stepped outside the box and named him its Fan of the Year. It was just another strange occurrence in the most unorthodox of seasons with the grand ending still waiting to be written.

 Brighton's defenders made things difficult for the Batavia boys soccer team Thursday.

The Blue Devils had a few chances to score, but fell behind early and wound up getting shutout 2-0 in the Monroe County League game.

The Barons attacked early and had a shot to score 13 minutes in when a shot hit the crossbar atop the net. They took the 1-0 advantage just moments later when Sean Rose got one past Batavia keeper Jordan Brown.

Brighton kept the pressure high early in the first half, with Batavia's defense making some key stops, including a penalty kick attempted just after the goal was scored.

The Blue Devils had their best chance to score in the final six minutes of the opening half.

With about 5 1/2 minutes remaining, Batavia had a corner kick.

Brighton goalie Jake Bonar stopped two difficult shot attempts and a third went sailing over the net.

The Barons had a corner with less than a minute left before the break, but never got a shot off.

The momentum that Batavia had built near the end of the first half vanished fast at the start of the second half as Michael Patchen scored off a pass by Joe Shapiro at the 42 minute mark

Batavia had a few chances to score, but not many quality opportunities because of the Brighton defenders. Bonar had 11 saves for the Barons, who are 2-3 in the league and 3-7 overall.

Brown made nine saves for Batavia, which drops to 0-4 in the league and 4-6 overall.

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