Motivated Batavia ousts East Aurora

It was Rudyard Kipling who once reasoned that it was a good thing to keep one's head while all around were losing theirs.

Kipling didn't say anything about feet.

But with 7 minutes left in the first half on Wednesday, Mitch Albrecht stayed upright when it seemed everyone else was prone in the penalty area and shot the goal that gave Batavia an improbable 1-0 boys soccer victory over East Aurora.

"The goalie bobbled it and luckily I was there to put it in," Albrecht said. "It wasn't too difficult."

The word there is improbable -- not impossible -- for while few outside the Bulldogs squad predicted victory, it was certainly an achievable goal.

"We felt coming in that East Aurora was favored," Albrecht said of the seventh-seeded Tomcats. "That just gave us the motivation to come out hard and get the victory. We knew we could if we came out hard and ready to go."

The win sends No. 12 seed Batavia (7-11-5) into the East Aurora regional title match at 6 p.m. Friday against No. 4 Benet, a 3-0 winner over Plainfield South.

"We were underdogs for the season we've had," Batavia coach Mark Gianfrancesco said. "We had a couple of guys back from injuries and that helped us change the complexion of the game."

On a field that looked so much like pudding that you expected Bill Cosby to come film a commercial at halftime, Batavia created more chances through the opening 40 minutes.

Time and again, Batavia soaked up East Aurora (14-6-4) pressure, then broke to create better chances for itself. First Alex Kinnard pulled a shot wide and then Josh Barnes, Hyrum DaSilva and Matt Russo worked a break that ended when Russo shot wide.

East Aurora nearly scored but Michael Farone headed off the goal line.

That was the dodged bullet Batavia desired. And when Kinnard fed Martin Viereckl, who forced a point-blank save, the Bulldogs were the team looking more likely to score.

The second half was much different. East Aurora pressured, though the defense never completely broke down.

"We had more (communication) than in any other game," Batavia goalie Adam Spencer said. "One slip up and it could skip in, or it could stick in the mud. I needed to have as much communication as possible."

Spencer made the save that preserved the victory with 14 minutes left when he got a hand to Adrian Magana's goal-bound shot. The ball hit the crossbar and the Bulldogs survived.

"My feet kind of got caught up in the mud and I made kind of a reaction save," Spencer said.

In the dying seconds, Albrecht tried an audacious long-range chip, but that shot hit the bar -- though it mattered little as 2 minutes later, the Bulldogs had their victory.