Local sports
Bath, Hornell clash for honors
BY CHRIS GILL THE LEADER

BATH - The last time Bath Haverling and Hornell football programs met as undefeated teams was 2003. Friday, the Rams made sure people wouldn't wait any longer for that to happen again.

Bath scored 21 second-half points in a 27-0 win against Livonia, recording its third shutout in the last four games and setting up this weekend's clash of two 5-0 state-ranked teams.

Details of the match were not available in time for the Courier's presstime and will be published in next week's edition.

"Everybody in the LCAA is good, just Hornell is a little bit better than everybody else," said Bath head coach Wayne Carroll. "I thank God we're in a position to play for the LCAA championship again. It's a great time to be a football player in Bath."

"It's going to be the biggest game of our lives," said senior defensive tackle/offensive tackle Bryant Madigan.

We're on top of the world right now, the last two years have been rough and now we're 5-0."

The Rams struggled to generate much offense in the first half due to a slick field and Livonia's containment defense which didn't allow Bath's home run hitter Andre McCloud to run for more than nine yards at any time. Instead, Bath used Brett Havens to pound the Bulldogs between the tackles and Livonia finally started to soften up.

Starting from their own 25 mid-way through second quarter, the Rams began to move the chains until stalling at midfield.

Facing a 3rd-and-7 on the 47-yard line, Bath did something the Bulldogs hadn't seen - dropped back and passed.

Jake Kuver delivered a high floater to Eric Howell, who spun his defender to the ground, made the catch and jogged the final 20 yards of the 47-yard touchdown reception to go up 6-0, capping off an eight-play, 4:11-minute drive.

"The field took a lot rain the last couple days and we couldn't get our footing," Carroll said. "We played cautious because the field neutralized our speed, but Havens really stepped up when they were stopping Andre. I thought we wore 'em down at the end."

Livonia struggled, too, but for different reasons.

Bath held Livonia to 127 total yards of offense for the game, sacked quarterback Chip Northrup twice, knocked him down on all but two of his 10 pass attempts, blanketed the receivers and held five different runners to a scant 59 yards on the ground. However, the Rams did give the Bulldogs some gifts in the form of yellow flags.

A 15-yard facemask penalty after Bath's secondquarter touchdown put Livonia on the 40 with four minutes left in the half, and Northrup put a perfect throw into the left corner of the end zone, but the receiver dropped it. After Bath fumbled away the ball on its first possession of the second half, Livonia reached the Rams' 15 and chucked three consecutive passes - all good ones, too - into the end zone that were all defended perfectly.

If the ball bounces an inch or two the other way, Bath's looking at a 6-6 or 7- 6 ball game.

"A couple times they dropped passes in the end zone, if they catch those it goes the other way," Carroll said.