By Zach Jirsa

The Batavia Bulldog football team secured a dominant 55-7 win against Lake Park on Fri., Sept. 11. They started the game off easily with a 14-0 lead and never looked back once as they held the lead the entirety of the game.

Batavia showed off its strong and complete utter dominance by scoring 42 points before halftime and rolling up massive yardage all while holding the Lancers scoreless at halftime. Senior Michael Vander Luitgaren showed off his intense passing skills by throwing for a whopping 324 yards in which his longest was a 51-yard pass. He gave the Lancers no chance to stop him, throwing 22 of 26 passes complete for an 80.8% completion percentage. But also, it wasn’t just him contributing for the team.

Their star wide receiver Brennon Zeng had a very large part in the game, giving the team 132 passing yards and catching four of Vander Luitgaren’s six touchdown passes, including scores from 12, nine and 49 yards out. Also their starting running back Liam Moran ran for an effective 65 rushing yards and 1 touchdown. 

“The game was great,” said wide receiver Darin Ashiru. “We got out to an early start just as we wanted. It was awesome to watch Brennon Zeng go for four touchdowns and to be able to get a bunch of guys in at the end of the game.”

Vander Luitgaren was relieved in the fourth quarter due to the large margin they were winning by. Therefore, the Bulldogs’ backup quarterback Cal Miller got a chance to show off his speed by capping off the night with a 21-yard touchdown run. The Lake Park Lancers’ only score came in the middle of the second quarter with a touchdown pass from Tay Smith to Logan Boebel. Batavia ran just one more play than Lake Park did yet the Bulldogs still got 11 more first downs than the Lancers. The Lancers fall back to 1-3 while the Batavia Bulldogs improve to 3-1. The Bulldogs next game will be the homecoming game on Fri., Sept. 18 against St. Charles North who are currently 2-2.