{"id":128780,"date":"2020-02-28T23:49:38","date_gmt":"2020-02-29T04:49:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=128780"},"modified":"2020-02-29T07:37:58","modified_gmt":"2020-02-29T12:37:58","slug":"knights-hang-on-to-win-sectional-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2020\/02\/28\/knights-hang-on-to-win-sectional-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Knights hang on to win sectional title"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

BLUFFTON — No. 8 seed Crestview survived a bit of a slow start and a wild finish to upset No. 3 seed Delphos St. John\u2019s 40-37 and capture the upper bracket Division IV sectional championship at Bluffton University on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The victory avenged a 58-37 regular season loss to the Blue Jays and it advanced the Knights to next week\u2019s district semifinals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Crestview head coach Doug Etzler celebrates after the Knights won a sectional title with a 40-37 victory over Delphos St. John’s.<\/strong> Wyatt Richardson\/Van Wert independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Crestview (13-11) went up three on a free throw by Kalen Etzler, but Delphos St. John\u2019s (14-8) hit a trey with three seconds left, only to have it waved off by a timeout and the Knights were able to hang on from there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cObviously at the end we got helped out with a timeout call when they hit a three that would have tied it,\u201d Crestview head coach Doug Etzler said. \u201cI\u2019m really proud of our guys. They have kept believing and have been getting a little better every day. It\u2019s really good to see their hard work pay off tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matthew Kahny got the Blue Jays off to a good start by draining three treys in the opening quarter to help his team lead 13-9 at the end of the period. He went on to finish with 12 points, while Carson Kreischer accounted for four of Crestview\u2019s points in the first quarter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the second quarter, Gavin Etzler and JJ Ward each hit a triple and Crestview held the Blue Jays to just seven points on the way to a 22-20 halftime lead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe got off to a rough start with Kahny hitting some big early threes for them,\u201d the elder Etzler explained. \u201cWe were playing off of him and having Kalen stay in the paint to guard against their ability to drive. After Kahny hit those shots we switched to a 2-3 zone did a great job of communicating their cutters and not giving them anything easy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cOffensively we stayed patient and didn\u2019t get rattled when we fell behind,\u201d Etzler added. \u201cWe kept taking good shots and possession by possession we climbed back in it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carson Kreischer scored six of his game high 14 points in the third quarter, while Brady Parrish scored five in the period and the Knights led 34-30 entering the fourth quarter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gavin Etzler hit a triple to account for half of Crestview\u2019s points in the final period. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Knights were 17-31 (52 percent) from the floor and 4-6 from the foul line with 17 rebounds, including seven by Kalen Etzler. Delphos St. John\u2019s was 15-36 shooting (42 percent), 0-2 from the free throw line with 16 rebounds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crestview, the defending Division IV state champions, will face Associated Press poll champion and No. 1 seed Columbus Grove (23-0) at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Elida. The Bulldogs advanced with a 59-35 win over Ada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

St. John\u2019s 13 7 10 7 \u2013 37
Crestview 9 13 12 6 \u2013 40<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Delphos St. John\u2019s: Isaac Fairchild 1-0-2; Matthew Kahny 4-0-12; Aiden Rode 2-0-6; Landon Elwer 1-0-2; Brady Parrish 5-0-11<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crestview: Kalen Etzler 2-4-8; Gavin Etzler 2-0-6; Brody Brecht 2-0-4; Carson Kreischer 7-0-14; JJ Ward 3-0-8<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent sports editor BLUFFTON — No. 8 seed Crestview survived a bit of a slow start and a wild finish to upset No. 3 seed Delphos St. John\u2019s 40-37 and capture the upper bracket Division IV sectional championship at Bluffton University on Friday. The victory avenged a 58-37 regular season loss to the Blue […]<\/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-128780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-31 10:17:44","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\/128780","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=128780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}