Cougars hold off St. John’s for 52-48 win

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent sports editor

It wasn’t easy, but the Van Wert Cougars managed to pick up their fourth consecutive win and fifth overall with a thrilling 52-48 win over Delphos St. John’s on Tuesday night.

It did look like it might be a Cougar runaway early on as Van Wert raced out to a 17-2 lead, with Aidan Pratt accounting for seven of those points and Owen Treece pouring in eight, including back-to-back treys. Delphos St. John’s fought back and closed the first quarter with a 9-4 scoring run.

“We made some shots and Owen let the game come to him again,” Van Wert head coach Ben Laudick said. “It was good to get off to a nice little start and we knew that they were going to crank up their pressure and change some things offensively to slowly climb their way back into the game, which is exactly what they did.”

Both teams struggled to score in the second quarter, with Treece and Nate Jackson accounting for all nine of Van Wert’s points, while Nolan Schwinnen and Landon Elwer each drained triples for the Blue Jays, who closed the period with seven unanswered points.

The Cougars (5-9) opened the third quarter with a 30-19 lead but scored just five points in the period. Matthew Kahny scored six and Landon Grothaus added four for the Blue Jays, who trimmed the deficit to 35-31 by the end of the quarter.

Delphos St. John’s (4-12) trailed by just one, 37-36 and 43-42 in the final period, but couldn’t take the lead. Treece kept the Blue Jays at bay by scoring 10 of his 26 points at crucial times in the fourth quarter, but it was an offensive rebound and return bucket by Nate Jackson with under a minute left that gave Van Wert some breathing room, 49-45.

“It’s no secret that Owen is our go to guy,” Laudick said. “He waited for screens and make a couple of shot fakes to get those guys moving, and Nate just made a great hustle play on a fast break play that Ethan (Brown) missed, but Nate was there to clean it up and took it from two back to four again. If we don’t make that I’m not 100 percent sure what happens at the end of the game.”

“That just shows the growth our guys have made from Game No. 1 to Game No. 14,” Laudick continued. I’m not sure we could do that at the beginning of the season but now as we have our basketball legs under us and have been in some different situations, we’re confident that our guys are resilient and are going to make plays.” ‘

“I’m proud of our guys, they showed a lot of resilience and toughness tonight,” Delphos St. John’s head coach Aaron Elwer said. “Our guys continued to fight to get it to one possession in the fourth quarter and we started to talk about getting over that hump and taking the lead but it was one of those nights where we never did. We couldn’t get that crucial winning play or winning stop when we needed it.”

Nolan Schwinnen led Delphos St. John’s with 13 points, including eight in the fourth quarter, and Landon Elwer and Landon Grothaus each added 10.

Van Wert is scheduled to travel to Elida on Friday and Delphos St. John’s will host Versailles the same night.

Scoring summary

Van Wert 21 9 5 17 – 52
St. John’s 11 8 12 17 – 48

Van Wert: Ethan Brown 1-0-2; Owen Treece 10-4-26; Garett Gunter 0-3-3; Aidan Pratt 5-1-12; Nate Jackson 3-0-7; Connor Pratt 1-0-2

Delphos St. John’s: Matthew Kahny 3-1-9; JJ Bonifas 0-3-3; Jason Gillespie 1-0-2; Landon Elwer 4-0-10; Nolan Schwinnen 5-1-13; Landon Grothaus 2-6-10

JV: Van Wert 58-36