{"id":114411,"date":"2019-03-07T00:34:31","date_gmt":"2019-03-07T05:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=114411"},"modified":"2019-03-07T00:44:58","modified_gmt":"2019-03-07T05:44:58","slug":"cougars-win-in-ot-to-play-for-district-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2019\/03\/07\/cougars-win-in-ot-to-play-for-district-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Cougars win in OT, to play for district title"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

ADA — It came down to one play, and it was perfectly executed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Owen Treece fired a perfect alley oop pass to Nate Place who scored off the glass with three seconds left in overtime to give Van Wert a 27-25 win over Defiance in the Division II district semifinals at Ohio Northern University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Surrounded by Defiance defenders, Nate Place watches as the game winning shot falls through the net with three seconds left in overtime.<\/strong> Bob Barnes\/Van Wert independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe ran that quite a bit this week and I don\u2019t think Owen threw one pass that was on the money,\u201d Place said with a smile. \u201cWe missed all of them, they were all over my head, coach Bags was yelling at him all week, but at game time he came down and got it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had seen them run that before, but the timing of it was tremendous and they did a really good job of executing it,\u201d Defiance head coach Kirk Lehman said. \u201cWhen you do that and it comes down to the last play, it\u2019s the difference in a game, so give them an awful lot of credit. It was a great call by coach Bagley and great execution by their kids.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the bucket, Blake Henry intercepted a long inbounds pass by Defiance (14-11) and the Cougars were able to run the remaining two seconds off the clock. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt just shows a lot about our kids, their grit and their toughness,\u201d Van Wert head coach Mark Bagley said. \u201cWe have a saying in our locker room and it\u2019s been up there the whole year \u2013 \u2018the game honors toughness’ \u2013 and I thought they really battled through adversity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Van Wert ended regulation in similar fashion to the overtime. After Tyrell Goings hit a jumper to tie the game 25-25 with 2:29 left, the Cougars were able to hold on to the ball against Defiance\u2019s 2-3 zone defense for the remainder of the game. Place received a feed down low but was unable to convert, sending the game to overtime. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rest of the game was a defensive struggle. Defiance\u2019s D.J. Dobson hit a pair of treys in the final minute of the opening quarter to give the Bulldogs a 10-6 lead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A bucket by Jack VanderHorst early in the second period gave Defiance a 12-6 lead, but the Cougars went on an 8-0 run to take a 14-12 lead with 2:55 left until halftime. Place, Henry and Drew Bagley had layups, and Henry added a jumper during the run. Dobson buried a trey from the top of the key with 1:50 left to give Defiance a 15-14 lead, a score that stood at halftime. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A layup by Bagley and a steal and layup by Place gave Van Wert an 18-17 lead with 5:10 left in the third quarter, but by the end of the period the Bulldogs held a 23-22 lead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only points of the fourth quarter came on a triple from the right corner by Treece at the 3:30 mark and the bucket by Goings a minute later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the game ended, Defiance was 11 of 49 (22 percent) from the floor, while Van Wert was 13 of 36 (36 percent), including just 1 of 14 from three point range. The Bulldogs had a commanding 35-25 advantage on the boards, including 15 offensive rebounds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPart of that was good defense, it really was,\u201d Bagley said. \u201cWe knew they were going to play a 2-3 zone and we worked on a lot of different things this week.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought that\u2019s the way we had to play tonight,\u201d Lehman said. \u201cThey scored 67 on us two weeks ago and we didn\u2019t stop them very often.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGive our kids credit, I thought defensively and rebounding the basketball we were tremendous. Even on the offensive boards I thought we were really good and I thought we gave a great effort, we just couldn\u2019t get shots to fall.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re so well coached,\u201d Bagley said of Defiance. \u201cCoach Lehman is a good friend of mine and I have a tremendous amount of respect for their team. I feel for those guys, but it\u2019s survive and advance time.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an odd twist, neither team shot a free throw the entire game. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drew Bagley led Van Wert with eight points, while Place had eight rebounds and six points. Henry also finished with six points. Goings led all scorers with 10 points. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Wert (16-9) will play No. 1 seed Shawnee for the district championship at 7 p.m. Saturday at Ohio Northern. The winner will advance to next week\u2019s regional semifinals at Bowling Green State University. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scoring summary<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Wert 6 8 8 3 2 \u2013 27
Defiance 10 5 8 2 0 \u2013 25<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Wert: Owen Treece 2-0-5; Nate Place 3-0-6; Blake Henry 3-0-6; Lawson Blackmore 1-0-2; Drew Bagley 4-0-8<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Defiance: D.J. Dobson 3-0-9; Will Lammers 1-0-2; Tyrell Goings 5-0-10; Alex Nation 2-0-4<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent sports editor ADA — It came down to one play, and it was perfectly executed. Owen Treece fired a perfect alley oop pass to Nate Place who scored off the glass with three seconds left in overtime to give Van Wert a 27-25 win over Defiance in the Division II district semifinals at […]<\/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-114411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-04 00:26:49","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\/114411","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=114411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}