Boatright scores 41 as East Aurora tops Waubonsie
Heading into the home stretch of the 2010-11 basketball season, as many as four schools — East Aurora, Neuqua Valley, Waubonsie Valley and South Elgin — could claim to have a legitimate shot at winning the inaugural Upstate Eight Conference Valley Division title,.
But only one of those schools has Ryan Boatright.
That would be East Aurora, and Boatright and the rest of the first-place Tomcats came to Waubonsie Valley on Friday night hoping to halt a two-game league losing streak. Boatright almost single-handedly ensured the skid wouldn’t reach three. He had 16 points after five minutes and his season-average 31 at halftime on the way to 41 in leading the Tomcats to a 74-60 victory.
“He’s capable of doing that any given night and tonight he was on,” said East Aurora coach Wendell Jeffries of Boatright’s performance, which featured 12-of-22 shooting and six 3-pointers, with 8 rebounds and 3 assists thrown in for good measure.
“Our defensive transition was awful, we didn’t stop their penetration and Ryan Boatright was outstanding tonight,” said Waubonsie Valley coach Steve Weemer. “We talked about controlling tempo, but we just didn’t execute our game plan; we gave Boatright seven layups to start the game.”
But despite all of his offensive pyrotechnics, perhaps Boatright was most impressive in the way he directed East Aurora’s delay game that burned most of the fourth quarter clock after the Tomcats (16-5, 8-2) had opened a 66-44 lead.
“To win the state championship you’ve got to be able to do that,” Boatright said. “Last year at this time we got on a roll and went to the sectional, so we want to do the same thing this year.”
While Boatright was economical in compiling his 41 points, it was the Warriors (14-8, 4-4) who were the night’s volume shooters. Though each team made 23 field goals, it took Waubonsie Valley 82 shots to do it, while East Aurora needed just 52. The Warriors’ shot advantage was built on 20 offensive rebounds, but they could not consistently turn those second chances into baskets.
“For whatever reason there’s a lid on the basket for us,” Weemer said. “We talked to the guys and told them we need to find a way to put the ball in the basket, but we’re still missing way too many high-percentage shots.”
When the Warriors started missing inside, they resorted to rushed shots from the perimeter, which also weren’t falling, so despite battling back from a 6-0 deficit and taking a 12-11 lead thanks to 10 points from Jared Brownridge, Waubonsie saw the game slip away in the second quarter. In that period the Warriors were outscored 22-10, including a pivotal 11-0 Tomcats run, that left them trailing 45-28 at the half. The Warriors made just 5 of 24 shots in the period and missed 5 straight 3-point attempts in the final two minutes.
Brownridge and Jakobi Johnson tried to keep the Warriors in the game in the third quarter with a combined 14 points, but Boatright’s 9 points in a 45-second span helped the Tomcats to a 63-44 lead after three periods.