Boatright too much for Batavia
No matter how complicated Batavia tried to make it for Ryan Boatright, the East Aurora star found a way to counteract it.
The Connecticut-bound point guard scored 23 of his game-high 33 points after the intermission, and his near-flawless play in the fourth quarter enabled the Tomcats to hold off a spirited Batavia boys basketball team 63-59 in Upstate Eight Conference crossover action Friday night in Aurora.
Boatright closed out the regular season by adding 9 rebounds, 5 assists and 3 steals.
But it was blocked shot on a layup attempt that may have been the play of the night.
It preserved the tenuous East Aurora lead, and his 3-pointer on the ensuing possession was a dagger.
“(Boatright) did some things in the fourth quarter that were magical,” said Batavia coach Jim Roberts, whose team played its second straight game without leaading scorer Jesse Coffey (out ill).
“He’d rank right up there (with the best players I have ever coached against).”
Batavia (13-12) hit Boatright with double-team traps, a box-in-one, straight man and various zones.
But Boatright converted his final six attempts from the field, including three from beyond the arc.
During the Bulldogs’ valiant fourth-quarter run fueled by what turned out to be 10 offensive rebounds, Boatright scored 13 of the Tomcats’ initial 15 points and fed Bryan Robinson with a no-look assist on the other East Aurora field goal.
Then, as if he had done enough, he deflected a pass that enabled East Aurora to build its largest second-half lead at 58-51.
“I knew we couldn’t afford that basket,” Boaright said of his spectacular block against the Bulldogs’ Mike Jorgensen with the Tomcats nursing a 52-51 lead. “I put a lot of pressure on myself.”
Batavia forged six second-half ties and actually led early in the fourth quarter by scoring the first 5 points of the frame.
As electrifying as Boatright was for East Aurora (21-5), Cole Gardner was efficient for the Bulldogs.
The junior post scored 25 points and hauled down a game-high 17 points.
He and Elliott Vaughn (11 points, 14 rebounds) dictated play in the interior after the Bulldogs struggled in the opening quarter.
Gardner was the only player to score for Batavia in the opening quarter as the other four starters were a combined 0-for-12 from the field.
Trailing 14-6 after a Boatright-buzzer-beating 3-pointer, Batavia outscored East Aurora in both the second and third quarters, slicing its 27-23 halftime lead to 40-39 after three quarters.
“We knew what we wanted to do,” Gardner said of the Bulldogs’ plan to negate Boatright. “We were trying to get other (East Aurora) people to score.”
Both teams had costly misses from the free-throw line, combining for 24 total misses.
“We didn’t do ourselves any favors going 8-for-19 (actually 8-for-20 from the line),” Roberts said.
Zach Strittmatter was the third Batavia player in double figures with 10 points.
John Williams, who iced the game with 2 free throws with 5.1 seconds left, added 17 for East Aurora.