Batavia sophomore guard Jacob McElfresh is leading the Bulldogs in scoring, going for 12.0 points per game.

Batavia sophomore guard Jacob McElfresh is leading the Bulldogs in scoring, going for 12.0 points per game.
By Chris Chaney
Sun staff

Switching to the big school division of the Southern Buckeye Conference, Batavia boys basketball head coach Mike Hatfield was uncertain coming into the season how his team would fare.

Were the Bulldogs an improved team from the 2013-14 squad that went 13-9 and finished third in the small school SBC-National? Hatfield believed so, but what he didn’t know was how the transition would manifest itself in the win-loss column.

Through the first month of the season, Hatfield still thinks that he has a better overall team despite a slow start.

“Our (goals) are still pretty similar after getting through (the league) once,” he said. “I believe that we can get back a few of those that we lost.

“We came out awfully slow the first time through (the SBC), ending up 2-3. We just started really slow and didn’t play well.”

Hatfield said things started to come together before Christmas when the Bulldogs knocked off Norwood and Mariemont in back-to-back road contests, but a loss to Clinton-Massie in the first game of the Clermont Northeastern Holiday Classic gave the coach some pause.

“We went to the CNE tournament and I don’t know if was (being on) break or whatever, but that first game was awful against (Clinton-)Massie,” he said. “I thought we were 15 points better than everyone in the tournament. We were fortunate to get one against CNE that next night.”

While Batavia has shown glimpses, they are still coming together as a team and getting comfortable in their roles.

One player who knows his role is sophomore guard Jacob McElfresh. The Bulldogs’ leading scorer averages 12.0 points per game and is shooting over 40 percent from 3-point range.

“McElfresh is playing pretty well,” Hatfield said. “When he shoots well, things go a lot better for us and a lot better for him.”

When McElfresh is missing those shots, junior Shawn Adams is doing a good job of cleaning up the garbage, the coach said, grabbing 6.4 rebounds per game and putting up 10.2 points per contest.

Senior guard Kenny Artis has moved from point guard to shooting guard with the emergence of sophomore Colin Sammons. Artis is averaging 6.5 points, 4.0 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game while Sammons goes for 4.6 points, 1.6 rebounds and 1.5 assists.

A key to the second-half success for the Bulldogs, Hatfield said, will be the improved offensive play of senior forward KeShawn Foley.

“We need more points; we’re struggling to score,” he said. “We need more points out of Foley. He’s just really unselfish and he needs to shoot the ball more.”

Batavia’s next three weeks are made up of nonconference games, including revisionist games against four of the six teams from the SBC-National. The Bulldogs also have a home game against Fayetteville-Perry (Jan. 17) and a road test against Milford (Jan. 24).

The onus on coming out of that six-game stretch with a winning record has not been lost on the head coach, especially as he eyes his team’s potential state tournament seeding.

“You look at (the remaining schedule) and think that now we’re away from the big guys, but Georgetown is as good as anyone on either side (of the SBC). Burg is playing really well and then mixed in there we play Milford,” Hatfield said. “You glance and think we have to get some wins, but we’re going to have to work for everything.

“We’d like to win a couple tournament games as well, but the big thing there is that before the tournament draw, you have to win some games so you’re not the last seed. We don’t get a lot of consideration out here in the East, so we need to go (into the seed meeting) with a decent record.”

The Bulldogs will begin that climb to a higher tournament seed on Friday, Jan. 9 when they host Georgetown. The tournament seed meeting is slated for Sunday, Feb. 15 at Lakota West High School.