Pow! Boatright Gets His Sidekick Back

AURORA–For over two months, the man who was supposed to play Robin to Ryan Boatright’s Batman this season has been missing from East Aurora’s boys basketball team.

Sure, there have been flashes for senior Snoop Viser. But the marksman who came out for the second half of , which clinched at least a share of the Upstate Eight Valley title for the Tomcats, has been missing for some time now.

With the Tomcats trailing by 11 points at the half, Viser came out in the second half and scored 21 of his 26 points to help East Aurora turn the tables and pull away for the win.

“That’s what he’s capable of, and I’ve been waiting on that for a while,” East coach Wendell Jeffries said. “He’s been in a slump. The last time he really shot it that well was Thanksgiving.”

Viser didn’t even start Thursday’s game. He dislocated the pinkie on his non-shooting hand during last Friday’s win at Waubonsie Valley and decided to get it looked at by a doctor instead of practicing Monday. Jeffries’ rule is simple: No matter who you are, no matter how good you are, if you miss practice, you don’t start the next game.

So Viser eased his way into the action with five points in the first half, playing the role of the sixth man.

But the Tomcats found themselves down by 11 at the break. Before Jeffries could even get into the locker room to get on his team, he could hear from outside the door that Boatright was doing the honors already.

“Everyone probably thought I came in here and knocked over some lockers or something, but the coaches were having our meeting before we came in and I heard Ryan Boatright getting after them pretty good,” Jeffries said. “I just came in and followed up on that.”

Whether the pep talk from his running mate since the fourth grade helped or not, Viser certainly seemed to get the message. With the Tomcats down 45-34 and Boatright catching a breather on the bench, Viser hit a 17-footer and followed that up with a pair of three-pointers to cut the lead to 45-42 all on his own.

“(The slump) has been a little frustrating, but since I’ve been off, I try to worry about other things, like defense, getting boards, steals, taking charges, stuff like that,” Viser said. “(In the second half) the only thing I was thinking about was the conference championship. We had to bring that conference championship back here.”

With the heavy lifting done, and Boatright rested, a 17-2 run in the fourth provided all the cushion the Tomcats needed.

Jeffries joked that he’d dislocate another finger on one of his hands if that’s what it takes to coax a performance like that out of Viser.

But for a half at least, Batman and Robin were back in action together.

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