Boatright, East Aurora sink South Elgin
The South Elgin boys basketball team made the easy shots look hard and East Aurora guard Ryan Boatright made the hard shots look easy in an 84-55 victory for the visiting Tomcats Saturday.
South Elgin was within 8 points of East Aurora in the third quarter of Saturday's Upstate Eight Valley matchup, but the Storm missed a series of shots from close range, bunnies, and Boatright made them pay for their inaccuracy.
"They started missing, I had a couple of open shots and I knocked them down," said the University of Connecticut recruit.
Boatright personally outscored South Elgin 11-2 to end the third quarter, a run capped by his 3-pointers on three straight attempts, the last of which put his team ahead 62-45.
"I believe every 3 that he hit was in transition," South Elgin coach Chaz Taft said. "It wasn't coming down in a set, it was not coming down and running their offense. We missed a layup, he took a three, we missed a layup, he took a three. He had 9 points in that stretch, and he's tough to guard once he's in transition throwing up threes."
South Elgin (2-4, 0-2) shot 4 of 20 in the third quarter, 0 of 7 from beyond the arc.
"If we make a couple of those bunnies, if our post players make a couple of those easy shots, it stops that momentum and slows (Boatright) down and lets us set up our defense what we wanted to do," Taft added. "But when we missed those bunnies it was like we got down on ourselves and he just ran and bam, bam."
East Aurora (4-1, 1-0) kept the heat on by scoring the first 14 points of the fourth quarter to stretch its run to 25-2, turning a competitive game into a blowout over the course of seven minutes. The Tomcats have won four straight.
South Elgin threw every defense in the playbook at the Tomcats' duo of Boatright (34 points) and senior guard Snoop Viser, who made 4-of-9 attempts from 3-point range to finish with 18 points.
"They're a little undermanned talent-wise and I know Chaz is a great coach, so coming in I expected everything," East Aurora coach Wendell Jeffries said. "Right before the game started I told the coaches, 'Get ready, we're going to see everything tonight.' And just for the record, we saw a triangle-and-two, a box-and-one, a 1-2-1 (zone), a regular 2-3 (zone) and regular man."
The Tomcats saw the triangle-and-two immediately.
"I ain't had a team come out from the get-go and play a box-and-one or triangle-and-two," Boatright said. "They usually try to play us straight up and if we start scoring, they go to that. South Elgin came out straight out in one of those defenses, so it was different at first because they tried to contain us."
South Elgin led 14-12, but East Aurora scored 14 straight points, fueled by 3-pointers from Boatright and John Williams. South Elgin's Sam Sutter (24 points) sank a 3-pointer at the first-quarter buzzer to trim the deficit to 26-17.
The Storm drew within 4 points on a 3-point play by Sutter late in the second quarter, but Boatright swished a 3-pointer at the buzzer to give the Tomcats a 44-37 lead at halftime.