Batavia HS

The Batavia Blue Devils played hard but came up short, letting a five-point lead slip away in the closing minutes of play against Wilson in a Section V semi-final to lose 57-55.

"My guys fought," said Head Coach Buddy Brasky. "They fought. We could have folded and they fought."

They fought on even after star guard Tee Sean Ayala fouled out with more than a minute left in the third quarter, putting him and his game-high 24 points on the bench the rest of the way.

That isn't the reason Batavia lost, though. Jonathon Liciaga in particular stepped up to fill the void, finding ways, even at 5' 9", to slip in behind Wilson's big center, 6' 7" Patrick Phillips, for easy baskets. He scored six points in the final quarter.

"I give a lot of credit to our guys," Brasky said. "After Tee Sean went out, they could have folded. They didn’t. Some other guys stepped up, but it just wasn’t enough."

Liciaga, who scored 11 points total, has become a bigger factor in Batavia's offense as the season has worn on as his talent for finding open space on the court has become more apparent.

"Guys figured out as the year went on, he’s open and he can put the ball in the basket," Brasky said. "As the year went on they started finding him more and more."

In the final minute, the Blue Devils didn't score and Brasky said that was the result of some bad decisions.

"The initial pressure (from Wilson) didn’t hurt us," Brasky said. "On the back end, we had some turnovers down the stretch. We made some bad decisions. We missed some open guys. That’s what young teams do, I guess."

Brasky and every player on the team certainly wanted to end the season with a Section V trophy. That, after all, is kind of a Blue Devil's tradition under Brasky, but as Brasky noted, this is a young team (only three seniors). The team has come a long way over the course of the season from a rather disorganized, mistake-prone group to being more disciplined on offense and defense.

"We preach at beginning of the year, especially this year, that it’s going to be a journey," Brasky said. "We had to keep trying to improve and we wanted to try and peak at the end.

"We went through some tough stretches and at the end of the year, we started playing some pretty good basketball. I thought we played, for the most part, tonight, we had stretches of really good basketball from a lot of guys, but again, it wasn’t enough."

To purchase prints, click here.

The Blue Devils are moving on in the post-season with a Section V playoff win today over Honeoye Falls, 59-49.

Antwan Odom scored 22 points, hitting two threes along the way. Tee Sean Ayala scored 14 points, hitting two three-pointers. Jonathan Liciaga scored 11. John Kindig added six.

For HF-L, Owen VanNewkirk hit 15 points, including a trio of threes.

It was the 400th win for Head Coach Buddy Brasky (submitted photo below).

To purchase prints, click here.

Both the boys and the girls indoor track teams for Batavia High School won Section V titles at RIT on Friday night. It was the 13th title in 15 seasons for the Lady Devils and the 5th in the last 10 tries for the boys team.

The girls team dominated throughout the meet, finishing with 124 points to 71 for second-place Pal-Mac, and featured several outstanding individual performances. Katherine Wiseley won the shot put and weight throw. Lizzie Cohen won the triple jump, the 55 hurdles, and placed second in pole vault. Claire Zickl won the 600 meter, and Maddie Moore won the 1500 race walk. Bri Bromley had a strong meet with a second-place finish in the 1000 meter and a fourth-place finish in the 1500 meter. The 1600 relay of Regan Henrici, Bri Bromley, Claire Zickl and Kiaya Franklin also won.

The boys faced a bigger challenge with U-Prep keeping things close until the final event. The final point margin for Batavia over U-Prep was 15 points, with Batavia notching 91 total points. Anthony "Butch" Ray continued his dominance in the throws by winning the shot put and the weight throw while regaining the Section V record in weight, with a throw of 62'. Eric Davis had a strong performance, winning the 55 hurdles. Campbell Andersen won the 600 meter and placed third in pole vault. Nick Neid placed second in the 1600 meter. Ian SanFratello placed second in the weight throw. The 1600 relay of Isaiah Ciociola, Jerry Reinhart, Freddie Cunningham and Campbell Andersen also placed second.  

Press release:

Batavia High School Student Government in conjunction with Batavia Police Department raised $800 Monday night. The money will be used to give back to a BHS student or students in the form of a scholarship at awards night in the spring awarded to seniors looking into law enforcement or criminal justice.

This is the second year of the event and coincides with the high school "Snowcoming" week where BHS celebrates winter and winter athletes. The senior Class of 2017 beat out staff members and the Police Department team and will be awarded the trophy during the winter pep assembly later this week. 

Top photo: Submitted photo; photos below, by Howard Owens.

The Lady Blue Devils' record fell to 4-15 on Thursday night with a 42-53 loss to Wellsville. Batavia closes the season at home Tuesday, game time 7:15 p.m., against Odyssey.

No stats available for the game.

Batavia High School senior Lexi Wahr took First Place in the individual routine competition this weekend at the Empire Cheer Competition. She competed against 15 other cheerleaders and had the highest all-around score. The individual routine is judged on jumps, dance and cheer.

Info and photo submitted.

Maggie Cecere, who set a school record in her senior year in soccer, made it official yesterday by signing her letter of intent to attend Kutztown University in Pennsylvania.

Kutztown is coming off a season where the soccer team was ranked #4 among Division II schools.

Photo: Zach, Kathy, Maggie and Peter Cecere; back row, Victor VanVliet and Roger Hume.

The Batavia Blue Devils have been selected to play a game the opening weekend of the high school football season in the Carrier Dome Classic, an annual event that brings in football teams from all over the state, Head Coach Brennan Briggs said this morning.

The exact time and date of the game -- either Sept. 1 or Sept 2 -- has not been determined yet, nor has an opponent for the Blue Devils been selected yet. It will likely be a Class B or Class A team out of Section IV, Briggs said.

Batavia was selected after Briggs applied for a slot in the classic a year ago.

"I'm excited for the kids," Briggs said. "It should be a blast. It's exciting for them."

The Carrier Dome Classic also puts the Batavia program on a bigger statewide stage, Briggs said. It will give people from all over the state a chance to see what Batavia football is all about.

Many of this year's team members were able to play a regional championship game in 2016 in New Era in Buffalo, home of the Buffalo Bills, so a game in the Carrier Dome is another nice highlight to their high school football careers.

"There are not too many times you get a chance to play both at New Era and the Carrier Dome," Briggs said. "It's pretty sweet."

The Carrier Dome also hosts the state championships, so Briggs said, that yes, indeed, at some point during the year he can use "get back to the Carrier Dome" to help motivate his team. It might inspire the players to dream big.

But the 2017 season is going present challenges each week, Briggs said. Besides what will certainly be a tough opponent in week one, week two is a home game against perennial Monroe County powerhouse Aquinas. The whole schedule for the three-peat Section V champions is likely to be stacked with tough opponents, Briggs said. Honeoye Falls-Lima has been moved to Class B and schools such as Geneva, Hornell and Livonia are always tough.  

"It will be a stacked deck," Briggs said.

Ryann Stefaniak scored 26 points and Taylor Stefaniak added 15, but it wasn't enough to overcome an experienced an athletic Cal-Mum team in the opening round of the annual Rotary Tournament at GCC.

Cal-Mum moved to 8-1 with the 59-53 win.

Batavia drops to 2-8.

The Lady Devils rallied in the 4th quarter, closing a double-digit deficit and at one point pulling within three points of the Red Raiders. In that quarter, Ryann hit three three-pointers along with a pair of two-point goals and two free throws.

Taylor also hit a pair of threes in the 4th quarter. Melissa Mountain scored six and Bri Janes 6, including adding a three in that 24-point fourth quarter.

For Cal-Mum, Gillian Flint scored 19 points and Isabella Slocum had 13.

For coverage of the Notre Dame - Attica game, click here.

In a game that was never really close, the Batavia Blue Devils won the annual Lions Tournament at GCC, beating the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, 60-29.

Tee Sean Ayala scored 19, despite a cold hand in the first half. He hit four three-pointers over the course of the game.

Antwan Odom, the tournament MVP, scored 14. He hit three threes. 

It was another big game for Notre Dame's Ryan Moffat, who hit three threes on his way to 15 points.

Batavia running back and linebacker Ray Leach is the only sophomore to be named to the All Greater Rochester First Team in football.

Leach finished the season with 1,888 yards rushing. He scored 28 touchdowns. He made 62 tackles as a linebacker.

Leach isn't alone on the first team. Also named from Batavia Anthony Ray, a junior, who was Section V Class B Defensive Player of the Year and has been on all three of Batavia's Section V championship teams. He made 82 tackles and nine sacks.

Named to the second team was quarterback Jerry Reinhart.

The other top honor for a Genesee County athlete went to Maggie Cecere, Batavia, who was named to second team in girls soccer.

In an effort to help students who are falling far behind in their studies, to the point where the students start to lose hope of catching up, principals Scott Wilson, Batavia High School, and Ashley John Grillo, Batavia Middle School, have developed an innovative new afterschool program to help the students make up for lost time.

Wilson described the program as "creative" at Tuesday's meeting of the City Schools Board of Trustees.

The board unanimously approved implementation of the program after Wilson's presentation.

The program will be held at the high school on Mondays through Thursdays from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m.

Wilson said he would anticipate from five to 15 students participating in each five-week segment.  

There would be a rotating group of teachers running the sessions each day and the program uses online courses designed to help students with makeup work as well as group learning.

"The goal is to have enough progress for the students to recover," Wilson said.

Students fall behind for a variety of reasons, from home life, to illness to other distractions and they often would like to keep up with their school work, Wilson said. That's hard to do when each day is filled with the current day's schoolwork.

During the course of the academic year, students get grades that are really just progress markers, Wilson explained, but the most important grade comes at the end of the school year, so the goal of the program is to provide midyear course correction for those who "go off-roading," Wilson said.

Wilson hopes to implement the new program starting in January.

The Batavia High School Choir is singing Christmas carols all over Batavia, mostly at businesses that made a donation to help cover the $50,000 it will cost for them to travel and participate in a competition in Washington, D.C.

We happened to catch up with them while they were at Valle Jewelers.

The Evens beat the Odds 98-92 today in the annual Batavia High School boys basketball alumni game. 

Batavia's head coach, Buddy Brasky, said the oldest player on the floor today was from the Class of 1998 and there were players who graduated as recently as last year participating.

Brasky said it's just a good time for the players and coaches and fans. Afterward, they all go out for beer and pizza.  

The game was played at John Kennedy School.

The after-game photo at the bottom was posted by Brasky on Twitter.

Antwan Odom had 17 points and TeeSean Ayala scored 13, including three three-pointers, to help the Batavia Blue Devils beat Honeoye Falls-Lima 55- 39 in Batavia's home opener.

Batavia is now 2-1 on the season.

Mason McFollins added eight points.

The Batavia Lady Devils picked up their first win of the season in their home opener on Friday night, beating Eastridge 54-36.

Ryann Stefaniak led all scorers with 14 points. Mackenzie Reigle hit three three-pointers on her way to an 11-point game and Taylor Stefaniak also scored 11.

Batavia's Maggie Cecere has been named to the First Team, All-State Class A girls soccer team for 2016.

Of the 11 girls named to the team, only two were from Section V.

Cecere has committed to Kutztown University where she will be a pre-med major and play for the Golden Bears, a team coming off its most successful season in program history, making it to the final four of the Division II NCAA playoffs. The team will be ranked #4 to start the 2017 season.

Her sister, Samantha, just completed her first college season as goalie for Wilkes University. She is a pre-pharmacy major.

Photo courtesy of Steve Ognibene.

The College and Career Center at Batavia HS, now led by Anita Strollo, has launched a new program called, "Lunch with the Pros," where students can sit down with local professionals and business leaders to learn about what it takes to pursue and succeed in various career fields.

Today, a group of students talked about law enforcement with Officers Matthew Wojtaszczyk and Marc Lawrence to learn about becoming a police officer.

Coincidently, Batavia PD is about to launch a new Explorer program and will host a meeting for potential Explorer Post members at 7 p.m., Jan. 10 and BPD headquarters, 10 West Main Street.  High school interested in joining the program are welcome to attend. RSVP to either officer at mlawrence@batavianewyork.com or mwojtaszczyk@batavianework.com.

The Batavia High School Drama Club presents three performances this weekend of William Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing," as dramatized by Trish Black Melchan.

Performances are at 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday, and at 2 p.m., Sunday, on the stage of the school's auditorium.

Tickets are $8 per adult and $6 for students and seniors.

The Cast:

The Batavia HS choir plans on competing in a chorus competition in Washington, D.C., next year and they need to raise $50,000 to make the trip, so a novel fundraising idea they hit on is to sing Christmas carols for the community.

Local businesses can hire them to sing Christmas carols and other holiday songs on Dec. 19. The cost is $15 for two songs and $5 for each additional song.

The choir will also go to private homes on a date yet to be determined. The price is the same.

Director Jane Hagett said the group would also be happy to hear from service clubs, such as Kiwanis, Lions, Rotary or Zonta to sing at one of their gatherings in December.

The school's phone number is (585) 343-2480, ext. 2000.