{"id":107519,"date":"2018-09-25T06:53:23","date_gmt":"2018-09-25T11:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=107519"},"modified":"2018-09-25T07:14:18","modified_gmt":"2018-09-25T12:14:18","slug":"random-thoughts-sept-25-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2018\/09\/25\/random-thoughts-sept-25-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Random Thoughts: Sept. 25, 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong>independent sports editor<\/em><\/p>\n

This week’s Random Thoughts center around lack of officials, MAC volleyball, OSU at Penn St., high scoring football games, Le’Veon Bell and the Van Wert Health Cross Country Invitational.<\/p>\n

Lack of officials Part II<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Last week I wrote about how a shortage of officials is becoming a more widespread problem, and it\u2019s a situation that the Ohio High School Athletic Association is aware of.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is starting to happen around the state, especially at the lower levels, like junior high, freshman and junior varsity. Soccer and volleyball are the two fall sports most affected,\u201d OHSAA Director of Communications Tim Stried said. \u201cThe average age of officials continues to rise (it\u2019s now 50) and there aren\u2019t enough younger\/newer officials coming on board to replace them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can anything be done to increase the number of officials?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are trying to raise the level of sportsmanship towards officials and encourage more people to get involved with officiating,\u201d Stried said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not an easy job, but hopefully people step up.<\/p>\n

MAC-tacular<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

This week\u2019s Ohio High School Volleyball Coaches Association statewide poll was released on Monday, and the top four teams in the state are Midwest Athletic Conference teams \u2013 1. St. Henry 2. New Bremen 3. Fort Recovery 4. Marion Local. That\u2019s just crazy, and if it\u2019s not enough, two more MAC teams are ranked in the Division III poll \u2013 Coldwater at No. 10 and Versailles at No. 13.<\/p>\n

Ohio State at Penn State<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m a little nervous about this game. Ohio State is 6-6 at Beaver Stadium since Penn State joined the Big Ten, and the Buckeyes never seem to play well there.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m still convinced that the Nittany Lions will try to put all sorts of pressure on Dwayne Haskins, who\u2019s not exactly a mobile quarterback. Great arm, not a runner.
\nHopefully the Buckeyes are up to the challenge.<\/p>\n

A plethora of points<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Did anyone else notice that plenty of points were piled up during last week\u2019s area high school football games? St. Marys put up 70 on Kenton, Wapakoneta scored 56 on Elida, Celina tallied 42 against Ottawa-Glandorf and Van Wert hung 39 on Shawnee.<\/p>\n

Spencercville scored 69 on Ada, Allen East scored 50 against Delphos Jefferson and Wayne Trace and Antwerp combined for 88 in a game that took three and a half hours to complete. Edgerton scored 62 and Hicksville had 51 points.<\/p>\n

Coldwater, St. Henry, Marion Local and Minster each scored at least 35 in their games.<\/p>\n

It seems we\u2019re in an age where offenses are dominating defenses, and not just at the high school level.<\/p>\n

There was one low scoring game last Friday \u2013 Tinora 7 Ayersville 6.<\/p>\n

Le\u2019Veon Bell to the Colts?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The Steelers are reportedly open to trading franchise running back Le\u2019Veon Bell, and I can\u2019t say that I blame them. His holdout is bizzare and pretty silly when you think about the money it\u2019s costing him. He\u2019s not the most durable back around and he\u2019s had some off the field issues. Granted, when he\u2019s healthy and his head is on straight, he can be downright dominating.<\/p>\n

I saw a report that it would make sense for him to be traded to the Colts. Can you imagine Andrew Luck and Bell in the same backfield?<\/p>\n

If I\u2019m the Steelers, I trade him in a heartbeat for the right offer, because it\u2019s pretty obvious things have been damaged beyond repair in Pittsburgh. There\u2019s almost no chance he\u2019s returning next year, so why not trade him now and get something out of it?<\/p>\n

Well done<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

A tip of the hat to everyone involved with Saturday\u2019s Van Wert Health Cross Country Invitational. It was a well run event. Thank you to Van Wert Health for sponsoring it, Crestview for being the official host, Crestview Athletic Administrator Trent Kreischer for supplying plenty of information, volunteers who helped on race day, Bob Barnes for taking outstanding pictures, and of course, the runners who participated.<\/p>\n

If you have thoughts on any of the above topics or anything else, feel free to email me at sports@thevwindependent.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent sports editor This week’s Random Thoughts center around lack of officials, MAC volleyball, OSU at Penn St., high scoring football games, Le’Veon Bell and the Van Wert Health Cross Country Invitational. Lack of officials Part II Last week I wrote about how a shortage of officials is becoming a more widespread problem, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-21 20:25:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107519\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}