{"id":139719,"date":"2021-01-31T22:01:59","date_gmt":"2021-02-01T03:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=139719"},"modified":"2021-01-31T22:03:14","modified_gmt":"2021-02-01T03:03:14","slug":"van-wert-upsets-lima-cc-61-57","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2021\/01\/31\/van-wert-upsets-lima-cc-61-57\/","title":{"rendered":"Cougars pull off upset of Lima CC 61-57"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

Van Wert head coach Ben Laudick believes it\u2019s the biggest victory for his young team so far this season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cougars, now 4-9, picked up their second win of the weekend and third straight overall by beating Lima Central Catholic 61-57 on Saturday. The Thunderbirds (9-7) had won five of their last six games and had knocked off powerhouse Ottawa-Glandorf earlier in the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Sophomore point guard Garett Gunter scored 12 points during Saturday’s 61-57 upset win over Lima Central Catholic. Bob Barnes\/file photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll of our wins are big ones but I would say this is our biggest win of the season,\u201d Laudick said. \u201cOur guys are excited for what\u2019s to come next week and we\u2019re excited about how we\u2019re trending but there is still some work for us to do to get better and to do things we want to do toward the end of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cougars found themselves trailing 16-13 after the first quarter and 31-22 at halftime after the Thunderbirds scored the final seven points of the second quarter, but the game took a notable swing early in the third quarter. Van Wert opened the period with nine unanswered points, five by sophomore Adian Pratt and four by classmate Garett Gunter, who went on to finish with 12 points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From there the two teams went back and forth until senior Owen Treece gave Van Wert the lead for good, 45-42, with a deep triple from the left wing with 30 seconds left. Treece finished with 18 points and Pratt put in 12 of his season high 15 points in the quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe challenged them at halftime and what we said to them was if we want to do good things at the end of the year, we have to rise to the occasion right now against a good basketball team,\u201d Laudick explained. \u201cWe did not finish the first half the way we wanted to and our guys responded to the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAidan\u2019s coming along and his stock is going up right now,\u201d the coach continued. \u201cWe told him he has to be a force inside \u2013 if you\u2019re a force on the inside it\u2019s going to open things on the outside a little bit and he did a really good job of using his length and size to get good looks inside.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cGuys like Ethan Brown, Aidan Pratt and Garett Gunter are coming along. There were some growing paints to start with but we\u2019re coming along and we\u2019re starting to get other people to score and it\u2019s obviously helping us out on offense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Wert extended the lead to 51-42 by opening the fourth quarter with a 6-0 run on a bucket by Treece, an uncontested layup by Brown and a shot by Gunter. Lima Central Catholic pulled to within four, 59-55 with under a minute left, but a pair of free throws by Nate Jackson helped secure the win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lima Central Catholic had three players finish in double figures. MeShaud Moore came off the bench to score 14, Brian Hines added 12 and Rossy Moore scored 10, including eight in the second half. The Thunderbirds lost the services of starting guard Evan Unruh, who left the game in the first half with an injury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Wert is scheduled to host Delphos St. John\u2019s on Tuesday night before playing the final two road games of the regular season \u2013 at Elida on Friday and at St. Henry on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Van Wert 13 9 23 16 \u2013 61
Lima CC 16 15 11 15 \u2013 57<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Wert: Ethan Brown 4-0-8; Owen Treece 7-2-18; Garett Gunter 6-0-12; Ty Jackson 2-0-4; Aidan Pratt 6-2-15; Nate Jackson 1-2-4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lima Central Catholic: DeMarr Foster 1-2-5; Rossy Moore 4-2-10; Nate Stolly 1-0-2; Evan Unruh 1-0-3; Carson Parker 2-0-5; Brian Hines 5-2-12; Meshaud Moore 6-2-14; Billy Bourk 3-0-6<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JV: Lima Central Catholic 49-45<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent sports editor Van Wert head coach Ben Laudick believes it\u2019s the biggest victory for his young team so far this season. The Cougars, now 4-9, picked up their second win of the weekend and third straight overall by beating Lima Central Catholic 61-57 on Saturday. The Thunderbirds (9-7) had won five of their […]<\/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-139719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 14:24:48","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\/139719","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=139719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139719\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}