Random Thoughts: good luck, thanks

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent sports editor

This week’s Random Thoughts include good luck wishes, parking at Ohio State this weekend, a chance to win free tickets, public vs. private schools, LeBron James and thank you.

Good luck

Best of luck to Van Wert 138 pound wrestler Gabe Steyer as he makes his third consecutive State Wrestling appearance. He punched his ticket to Columbus by winning his second straight Division II district championship at Norwalk.

Three years at State is a very impressive feat.

Best of luck as well to the Antwerp Archers, Columbus Grove and Parkway’s basketball teams at tonight’s Division IV regional semifinals. Those three teams are representing the area and the Green Meadows Conference, the Northwest Conference and the Midwest Athletic Conference.

Good luck as well to Ottawa-Glandorf and Shawnee at this week’s regionals. It’s nice to have two Western Buckeye League teams this far along in the tournament.

Let’s not forget about Lima Senior, who will play against Toledo Start later this week.

OSU parking

With the OHSAA State Girls Basketball Tournament and the State Wrestling Tournament taking place at the same time, parking spaces could be hard to come by this Thursday, Friday and Saturday at Ohio State.

If you’re going down to Columbus for either or both of these events, plan ahead.

Public vs. private

For those keeping track, 12 of the 16 teams at this week’s girls state tournament are public schools.

Having said that, just one division – Division II – has no private or parochial schools playing in the semifinals.

Free tickets

A free plus for 99.7 WKSD – if you’d like to enter for a chance to win tickets to all 12 State Boys Basketball Tournament games – semifinals and finals – plus a parking pass, email wksdtickets@gmail.com and include your name and phone number.

One lucky person will be drawn next Monday morning.

LeBron James

Many of you have probably heard or seen comments by LeBron James about the possibility of playing in an empty arena due to the coronavirus or COVID19.

The gist of what he said was he wouldn’t play if no one was there to watch. Someone needs to remind LeBron that the vast majority of fans watch the games on television or listen on radio.

Thank you

With the 2019-2020 winter sports season mostly in the books in Van Wert County, save for Gabe Steyer, it’s time to say thank you.

Thank you to a great group of coaches – Van Wert’s Hannah Phlipot, Ben Laudick, Ben Collins, Kevin Decker and Keith Rydell, along with Crestview’s Mark Gregory and Doug Etzler, and Lincolnview’s Kyle Williams, Brett Hammons, Stephen Pardon and Neil Korte. Each and every one of them took the time to for share results and other information, statistics and took the time to comment on games/matches, win or lose. All of them are to be commended.

Thank you to the three county athletic directors – Trent Temple of Van Wert, Trent Kreischer of Crestview and Greg Leeth of Lincolnview. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I’ve worked with a lot of athletic directors over the years and these three are right up there with the very best.

Thank you to Kenny Stabler and Jason Williamson of WKSD and Scott Alan and Ron Burt of WERT for sharing their game statistics with me when needed. It was a huge help and it was much appreciated.

Thank you to two great photographers, Bob Barnes and Wyatt Richardson, for taking amazing pictures throughout the winter sports season. You can tell they really care about their work.

Thank you to each and every one of the student-athletes who participated during the winter sports season and of course, thank you to our loyal readers for clicking on our Sports page and enjoying our stories and features.

As always, if you have any thoughts, comments or suggestions, feel free to email me at sports@thevwindependent.com.