Van Wert wins tight game at The Den

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent sports

It was by no means easy, but Van Wert held off a stubborn Wayne Trace team on Saturday, defeating the visiting Raiders 50-47. The game served as the home opener for the Cougars, who improved to 2-0 on the season.

A basket by Carter Clemens with 2:45 left in the fourth quarter pulled Wayne Trace to within one, 48-47, but it was the final time the Raiders (1-2) would score in the game. Van Wert’s Keaten Welch scored with 2:22 left and those were the last points for the Cougars, who missed six consecutive free throw attempts, all in the final 38 seconds, and finished just 2-of-10 from the foul line. 

Fortunately for Van Wert, with less than 30 seconds left in the game, Wayne Trace turned the ball over twice and had a long distance shot hit the glass as time expired.

“We talked about defense at halftime,” Van Wert head coach Jeremy Best said. “Everything for them in the first half seemed to be real easy for them offensively so we talked about if we were going to win, we had to execute on the offensive end better and help ourselves on the defensive end by having good possessions. We have to get better in the half-court, but when you can’t get stops, we can’t get in transition – everybody wants to play like that and get easy baskets but you can’t do it until you get stops.”

“I’m proud of our guys,” he continued. “We’re happy with the win but I told them it’s a really good thing that we kind of had a ‘lost’ feeling after this game, to know we still won the game but we have to be able to finish games situationally better. That’s what cost us games last year, not finishing possessions and finishing off free throw scenarios or getting the ball in bounds – those are areas we have to get better. We have enough kids that have played enough basketball that they can’t make those mistakes and we have to coach them better.”

The two teams went back and forth in the first quarter and the Raiders held a 13-12 lead at the end of the period, with Tanner Laukhuf and Caden Sinn combining for nine points. Welch and Cohen Bragg each hit a pair of baskets in the opening quarter for the Cougars.

In the second quarter, the Raiders led by four twice, 20-16 and 22-18, but Van Wert took a 25-24 lead when Caden Collins drilled a triple from the top of the key with 2:40 left until halftime. With 1:35 left, a Xavier Kelly layup off a steal tied the game 27-27, but a left corner triple by Sinn made it 30-27 Raiders, a score that stood at halftime. Sinn went on to finish with 14 points. Zach Crummey accounted for eight of Van Wert’s second quarter points and he went on to lead the Cougars in scoring with 14 points, plus nine rebounds.

Early in the third quarter, Griffin McCracken whistled in a three pointer after an offensive rebound by Cohen Bragg, then a steal by Bragg led to a two-handed dunk by Crummey that gave Van Wert a 32-30 lead. Later in the quarter, Bragg added a pair of buckets, including a late trey that put the Cougars ahead 44-39. Bragg went on to finish with 11 points and six rebounds.

“Cohen is a kid we challenged this week,” Best explained. “We told him ‘you have to be a presence for us, you can’t be our fourth or fifth option, you have to be right there with the rest of our guys. He had some huge rebounds and some big buckets for us. Our guys want to be good, they want to be coached, they want to be challenged and I can live with that and it’s much better to learn from a win than it is from a loss.”

The Cougars will have their first double weekend of the season this weekend, as they open WBL play at home against Elida on Friday, then travel to Kalida on Saturday.

“This week was a long week – we had four weeks of preseason practice, had a game, then we had another eight days before we played again,” Best said. “It is what it is, but I felt it a little bit in our practice on Friday – we were a little off and I think we need to get that fixed with more routine and that will happen quick. We’re going to play six games in 12 days, so they’re going to get their fill of games.”

Wayne Trace will return to action Saturday at Crestview.

Box score

Cougars  12  15  17   6 – 50

Raiders   13  17    9   8 – 47

Van Wert: Xavier Kelly 3-0-6; Griffin McCracken 3-0-8; Keaten Welch 3-2-8; Caden Collins 1-0-3; Zach Crummey 7-0-14; Cohen Bragg 5-0-11

Wayne Trace: Tanner Laukhuf 4-0-9; Caden Sinn 6-0-14; Zach Stoller 2-1-7; Micah Sinn 1-0-3; Carter Clemens 4-0-9; Lane Wenninger 1-0-3; Blake Noggle 1-0-2

JV – Wayne Trace 43-38