Friday Night Show at Geneva: Revenge of the Bulldogs

It was Thursday the 13th when Geneva upset Batavia at the Bulldogs' home court in a 58-46 overtime victory.

Friday night at Geneva, it was Revenge of the Bulldogs, as Batavia scored the first seven points of the fourth quarter and returned the favor with a 49-41 win in Geneva's friendly confines.

In the Jan. 13 game, the Vikings used a box-and-one and a variety of defenses to keep the Bulldogs off balance.

"They did it last time and did a great job of it," Batavia coach Jim Roberts said. "They did well tonight. But I thought today we did a better job getting it into the paint than we did at Batavia."

Yes, they did.

Batavia's 6-5 forward Cole Gardner had nine points in the fourth quarter and 6-6 forward-center Elliott Vaughn had seven—turning a three-point Viking lead at the end of three quarters to a five-point deficit.

"It's tough for us to cover their two bigs," Geneva coach Phil Ralston said. "We needed to have a near-perfect game to beat a team that has so many matchup issues with us."

The Vikings were near perfect in the third quarter.

Trailing 19-17 at the half, Geneva scored the first eight points in the third, when Dan Trimble scored seven of his 15 points. The Vikings led 30-22 late in the quarter.

"It was starting to get away from us, and we were trying to stop the bleeding as best we could," Roberts said. "Because that's when it jumped to eight—and it was quick."

Batavia settled, scored the last five points in the quarter and trailed 30-27.

"We had an eight-point lead and couldn't extend it," Ralston said. "We turned over the ball too many times, and they cut it to three at the end of the quarter. That was a huge swing in the game."

Batavia's defense clamped down in the fourth quarter and they made some nice, crisp passes to beat Geneva's full-court and half-court pressure. Jesse Coffey hit Gardner underneath to give Batavia a 42-34 lead at just under the three-minute mark.

"I think that was a situation where Jesse was at his best—taking a lot of heat and being strong with the basketball and finding Cole," Roberts said.

Gardner finished with 16 points, Zach Strittmatter 12 and Vaughn nine. Trimble had 15 and Dan Hince 10 for Geneva.

In the end, the advantage for Batavia came on the offensive and defensive glass.

"Too many offensive rebounds for their guys. That was problematic," Ralston said. "We said one of the main keys in this game was rebounding, and that was one of the reasons we had the result we did."

Scoring

GENEVA—41

• Brendan Leahy—4
• Phil Lorenz—2
• Dan Trimble—15
• Dan Hince—10
• Brad Bernhard—4
• Ryan Willing—2
• Marcus Stierwalt—4

BATAVIA—49

• Mike Rueffer—4
• Jesse Coffey—5
• Zach Strittmatter—12
• Cole Gardner—16
• Elliott Vaughn—9
• Mike Jorgensen—3