{"id":109790,"date":"2018-11-23T01:05:24","date_gmt":"2018-11-23T06:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=109790"},"modified":"2018-11-21T22:38:42","modified_gmt":"2018-11-22T03:38:42","slug":"season-preview-van-wert-lady-cougars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2018\/11\/23\/season-preview-van-wert-lady-cougars\/","title":{"rendered":"Season preview: Van Wert Lady Cougars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong><em>independent sports editor<\/em><\/p>\n<p>With four returning starters and six letter winners, the Van Wert Lady Cougars appear ready to make a substantial jump in this year\u2019s Western Buckeye League girls\u2019 basketball standings.<\/p>\n<p>6-0 senior Abby Jackson, 5-3 senior Alexis Metz, 5-7 senior Reagan Priest and 5-4 junior Caylee Phillips are the returning starters from last year\u2019s 8-15 team, and they\u2019re joined by fellow letter winners Sierra Schaffer (5-5 senior) and Jerica Hubner (5-6 junior), plus four newcomers \u2013 5-5 sophomore Jaylyn Richards, 6-0 sophomore Allison Schaufelberger, 5-5 sophomore Carly Smith and 5-5 sophomore Isabella Carr.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_109789\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-109789\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-109789\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Rob-Adams-2018-2019.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"210\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-109789\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Rob Adams<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cOn the court \u2013 scrappy, aggressive, fast and competitive,\u201d head coach Rob Adams said of his team. \u201cOff the court \u2013 a big family with older and younger sisters, a lot of fun. Our letter winners bring experience \u2013 they\u2019ve handled adversity and made a commitment to be better. The growth has been incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur strength is our speed and quickness and overall skill set,\u201d Adams continued. \u201cWe will rely on improved defense and transition style of play on offense.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Improvement will be important, if the Lady Cougars (8-15, 3-6 WBL last season) hope to compete in the Western Buckeye League.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe WBL will be tough as always,\u201d Adams explained. \u201cOttawa-Glandorf is the defending league champs and until they are defeated they are the team to beat.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The non-conference schedule includes a number of challenging opponents, including Division IV state runner-up Ottoville, Coldwater, Delphos Jefferson, Spencerville, Wayne Trace, Delphos St. John\u2019s, Maumee Valley Country Day, Lincolnview, Paulding, Crestview, Fairview, Bryan and Lima Central Catholic.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur schedule is always challenging and we accept that as a team,\u201d Adams said. \u201cThe plan is to take it one game at a time and do what we practice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c We will need to play much bigger than our overall size, and must do a great job of boxing out and rebounding. This team is ready for any challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Lady Cougars will open the season tonight at home against Ottoville.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent sports editor With four returning starters and six letter winners, the Van Wert Lady Cougars appear ready to make a substantial jump in this year\u2019s Western Buckeye League girls\u2019 basketball standings. 6-0 senior Abby Jackson, 5-3 senior Alexis Metz, 5-7 senior Reagan Priest and 5-4 junior Caylee Phillips are the returning starters from [&hellip;]<\/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-109790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-02 04:00:52","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\/109790","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=109790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}