{"id":128071,"date":"2020-02-12T04:57:06","date_gmt":"2020-02-12T09:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=128071"},"modified":"2020-02-12T04:57:11","modified_gmt":"2020-02-12T09:57:11","slug":"coaches-corner-vws-phlipot-and-laudick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2020\/02\/12\/coaches-corner-vws-phlipot-and-laudick\/","title":{"rendered":"Coaches Corner: VW’s Phlipot and Laudick"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

This week\u2019s Coaches Corner features Van Wert girls basketball coach Hannah Phlipot and Van Wert boys basketball coach Ben Laudick. Both coaches have enjoyed improved play by their respective teams down the home stretch of the regular season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hannah Phlipot<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lady Cougars (6-15, 4-4 WBL) will finish the regular season at home Thursday night against Bath, then will open the Division II sectionals against Shawnee at Paulding on Tuesday, February 18. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Wert is 2-3 over the last five games, with wins over Kenton and Elida. The losses have come to a pair of 15-5 teams, Fairview and Bryan, and Lima Central Catholic (11-9). The Lady Cougars hung with Fairview and Bryan and led Lima Central Catholic by nine entering the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Hannah Phlipot<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

While coming up short in those games, head coach Hannah Phlipot is encouraged by what she\u2019s seen and she believes the Lady Cougars are playing true team ball late in the season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRecently we have been playing extremely unselfish basketball \u2013 the girls are making the extra pass, pushing the tempo of the game and getting open looks at the basket,\u201d Phlipot explained. \u201cThe last two games we have achieved new season highs in team assists. This is a stat column we have put great emphasis on in practice and as we prepare for our opponents.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lady Cougars have played good defense throughout the season, but improvement has been noticeable on the other side of the ball as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDefense has always been a strength of ours,\u201d Phlipot said. \u201cWe are very athletic and have been able to hold teams to low scoring games. Throughout the course of the season, our offense has improved tremendously and our shooting and free throw percentage have increased greatly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Junior Jaylyn Rickard is the team\u2019s leading scorer, averaging seven points per game, followed by two freshmen \u2013 Kyra Welch (6.2 ppg) and Sofi Houg (6.1 ppg). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have started Kyra and Sofi for the majority of the games this season,\u201d Phlipot said. \u201cThese two have fulfilled very vital roles for us. Kyra leads our team in total season assists and Sofi is our third leading scorer. Additionally, the girls have played in some very tight games and these experiences are going to really help them in the coming years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Senior Jamison Clouse averages 5.5 points per game and is the team leader in rebounds (6.4 per game). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Wert will face a tough opponent in Bath (17-2, 7-1 WBL) on Thursday, then Shawnee (18-2) in the sectionals next Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is extremely important for us to approach each game with confidence. We have seen glimpses of great, unselfish basketball from this group of girls,\u201d Phlipot said. \u201cThe key to our success is being consistent. If we can sustain intense defensiveness pressure, limit our turnovers, and play unselfish offense for four quarters, I strongly believe we can compete with anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ben Laudick<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saturday\u2019s 66-49 win over St. Henry marked the third win in four games for Van Wert (6-13, 2-5 WBL), which is encouraging at this stage of the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt this time of the year we are starting to play our best basketball in my opinion and that obviously makes me pretty happy but more importantly than that our guys are having a great time being around each other,\u201d head coach Ben Laudick said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ben Laudick<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDefensively we are getting timely stops when we need them and overall we are rebounding well at both ends of the floor, the coach continued. \u201cOur offensive execution is getting better and our guys are shooting with confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOwen (Treece) is obviously capable of having big nights but the play of Jake Hilleary (double figures both games last weekend), Keaton Brown, and Clayton Proffitt are helping us at the offensive end. They are knocking down shots, which is allowing us to do more things offensively.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Wert picked up the No. 7 seed at the 11-team Division II Ada district and the Cougars will play No. 9 seed Wapakoneta in the sectional semifinals at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, February 26, at Paulding High School.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you would have asked me last week at this time I wouldn’t be to sure about how our tournament draw would go but with how we finished the weekend out on the court we are happy with our seed and how the draw went as well,\u201d Laudick explained. \u201cWe had a scenario or two where we thought we might play Wapak so that did not come as a surprise but a few teams seeded higher than us did some things differently than we thought but we can’t control that. We talked about the tournament draw as a team Monday at practice very briefly but then quickly shifted our attention to Bath.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Wildcats are just 2-17 (0-7 WBL) this season, but Laudick believes that record is a deceiving one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBath is overall a very young team playing a lot of sophomores and their record may not look all that great on paper but they are in a lot of close games,\u201d Laudick stated. \u201cThey have lost six or seven games by six points or less and they will present some challenges out on the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey like to get out and run and they have quite a few guys that shoot it well from the perimeter. Rebounding well at both ends will be a focal point for us heading into Friday’s game and we look forward to trip down to Bath to try to keep our winning ways going.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Friday night, Van Wert\u2019s next game will be Tuesday, February 18 at Lima Central Catholic. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent sports editor This week\u2019s Coaches Corner features Van Wert girls basketball coach Hannah Phlipot and Van Wert boys basketball coach Ben Laudick. Both coaches have enjoyed improved play by their respective teams down the home stretch of the regular season. Hannah Phlipot The Lady Cougars (6-15, 4-4 WBL) will finish the regular season […]<\/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-128071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-03 04:20:56","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\/128071","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=128071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128071\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}