Cougars hold on against Wapak

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent sports

WAPAKONETA — It was a nerve wracking finish, but Van Wert was able to fend off Wapakoneta for a 47-42 victory on Friday night. The win kept the Cougars (12-3, 5-0 WBL) in a first place tie with Shawnee, while the Redskins (12-2, 4-1 WBL) suffered their first league defeat.

Van Wert held Wapakoneta to just three free throws in the third quarter and carried a 38-25 lead into the fourth quarter. However, the Redskins, who went 10 minutes without scoring a basket from late in the second quarter until early in the fourth quarter, started to heat up in the final period and slowly chipped away at Van Wert’s lead. Trent Lisi came off the bench and hit back-to-back treys during the rally, the second of which pulled the Redskins to within five, 43-38, with just over two minutes left in the game.

“You always anticipate that,” Van Wert head coach Jeremy Best said of Wapakoneta’s late push. “On the road against a good team it’s hard to hold a lead like that. There’s a fine line between patient and still playing the game and we kind of got stuck somewhere in the middle but we’ll learn from that and learn how to make better decisions and still play basketball.”

 With less than a minute left in the final period, Wapakoneta trailed by just two, 44-42, but Van Wert’s Griffin McCracken hit three of four foul shots down the stretch to help secure the win.

“He’s like the Energizer bunny,” Best said of McCracken. “Keaten (Welch) went out with an ankle injury and gutted through it for us, Caden Collins played very well, ‘X’ (Xavier Kelly) ran the show for us, Zach (Crummey) was a presence and Cohen (Bragg) was just Cohen inside, so we’re getting value from each kid on what they do for us to make us be a solid team. We don’t have anybody playing outside their box.”

The Cougars got off to a slow start, missing their first five shots. However, Van Wert was able to recover and led 16-12 at the end of the period, including a slam dunk by Crummey and the final three points coming on a right corner trey by Kelly at the buzzer. Van Wert led by as many as six on two occasions in the second quarter and the Cougars led 26-22 at halftime. A sticky man-to-man defense, which harassed the Redskins into 16 turnovers in the game, held Wapakoneta without a point until Caleb Adams hit a foul shot with 1:43 left in the third quarter.

“Their length and athleticism was a concern for us and our little guys crawled up underneath them and got at their feet and forced them into a level of uncomfortableness, especially in the third quarter,” Best said. “Defensively we’re a lot better than we were last year. We’re older, a little more physical – not physical, but more physical than what we were – and we’re maximizing that and when you’re playing five or six kids, that’s hard.”

“Every possession counts and our kids are buying into that,” he continued. “We don’t always make the right play but we usually play with purpose and I can live with that.”

Kelly led all scorers with 14 points, including four treys, while Crummey added 11 points. As a team, the Cougars connected on 17-of-35 shots and 7-of-10 free throws with 15 rebounds and 10 turnovers. Blake Rogers led Wapakoneta with 10 points and the Redskins were 16-of-28 shooting and 7-of-12 from the free throw line with 14 rebounds. Wapakoneta was 7-of-7 from two point range in the first half.

The Cougars are scheduled to host Coldwater today, with the junior varsity game starting at 5 p.m.

Box score

Cougars   16  10  12   9 – 47

Redskins  12  10    3 17 – 42

Van Wert: Xavier Kelly 5-0-14; Griffin McCracken 2-5-9; Keaten Welch 1-0-2; Zach Crummey 5-1-11; Cohen Bragg 3-0-7; Caden 1-1-4

Wapakoneta: Ryan Richardson 4-0-9; Caleb Moyer 1-5-7; Blake Rogers 5-0-10; Elliott Block 1-0-3; Caleb Adams 1-2-5; Trent Lisi 2-0-6; Zayden Hower 1-0-2

JV: Wapakoneta 56-36