Cougars win big, off to the Sweet 16

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent editor

FINDLAY — There’s really no other way to put it – it was pure domination from start to finish.

The No. 3 seed Van Wert Cougars got off to a fast start and simply rolled by a stunned Defiance squad 69-43 in the Division II district championship game at Liberty-Benton High School on Saturday night. The Cougars (18-7), winners of eight straight and 10 of their last 11, are now in the regional semifinals for the first time since the 2010-2011 season. No. 1 seed Defiance’s season ended at 20-5.

Defensively, Van Wert locked down the Bulldogs all night and offensively it was perhaps the most balanced effort of the year. Aidan Pratt led the Cougars with 21 points and 10 rebounds, including a basket and a three pointer in the final five seconds of the third quarter, then a crowd-pleasing slam dunk with 3:10 left in the game. Carson Smith added 16 points and Luke Wessell and Garett Gunter each scored 10. Nate Phillips finished with seven points.

“It’s a group of guys that have played an incredible amount of basketball together, starting early in elementary school,” Van Wert head coach Ben Laudick said. “They are on the same page and know where people are and they have a feel when one person has something going…they just know how to do things the right way.”

Leading 7-6 in the first quarter, the Cougars scored eight unanswered points, including back-to-back buckets by Gunter to take a 15-7 lead, which prompted a Defiance timeout. By the end of the quarter, Van Wert led 17-8, with Bradyn Shaw accounting for all of Defiance’s points.

“We always look to start off strong and we had a certain game plan that we wanted to do and our guys executed about to perfection,” Laudick said. “We wanted to keep Shaw in front of us as much as we could, we wanted to limit (Cayden) Zachrich’s touches and our guys were locked in and focused. You could feel it in the locker room before the game that we were ready.”

“It’s on me – we weren’t ready to play and we didn’t match the intensity or the enthusiasm that Van Wert had,” Defiance head coach Bryn Lehman said. “Credit coach Laudick for having his team ready to play.”

In the second quarter Zachrich helped close the gap to five, 24-19, but Luke Wessell scored six points and AJ Proffitt splashed in a trey that helped widen the margin to 32-23 by halftime.

Any hope of a Defiance comeback were dashed in the third quarter. The Cougars outscored the Bulldogs 19-4, including eight points by Smith and Pratt’s five-point flurry at the end of the period. In the fourth quarter, Van Wert had just three baskets but went 12-of-21 from the foul line. Laudick emptied his bench with about two minutes left in the game, which prompted a standing ovation from an already loud Van Wert crowd.

“(The fans) are incredible,” Laudick said. “There were times where I couldn’t hear anything — the coaches were saying something to me, we’re trying to communicate with them and I loved it. I hope everyone is going to BG at 8 o’clock on Thursday night because we’re going to try to keep this thing rolling as best as we can.”

Zachrich led Defiance with 17 points, including three treys in the fourth quarter, while Bradyn Shaw scored 16, including all eight of his team’s first quarter points.

Van Wert will face Rossford (21-4) in the regional semifinals at 8 p.m. Thursday at the Stroh Center at Bowling Green. The first game of the night will feature Sandusky and Rocky River Lutheran West.

Box score

Van Wert 17 15 19 18 – 69
Defiance 8 15 4 16 – 43

Van Wert: Nate Phillips 3-1-7; AJ Profitt 1-0-3; Luke Wessell 3-3-10; Carson Smith 5-6-16; Garett Gunter 3-0-10; Aidan Pratt 9-2-1-21; Colin Haggerty 1-0-2

Defiance: Bradyn Shaw 7-0-16; Tyler Fredrick 1-0-2; David Jimenez 1-0-2; Isaac Schlatter 2-0-4; Kahlil Ligon 0-2-2; Cayden Zachrich 6-2-17