{"id":139825,"date":"2021-02-02T22:31:43","date_gmt":"2021-02-03T03:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=139825"},"modified":"2021-02-02T22:31:47","modified_gmt":"2021-02-03T03:31:47","slug":"cougars-hold-off-st-johns-for-52-48-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2021\/02\/02\/cougars-hold-off-st-johns-for-52-48-win\/","title":{"rendered":"Cougars hold off St. John’s for 52-48 win"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

It wasn\u2019t easy, but the Van Wert Cougars managed to pick up their fourth consecutive win and fifth overall with a thrilling 52-48 win over Delphos St. John\u2019s on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It did look like it might be a Cougar runaway early on as Van Wert raced out to a 17-2 lead, with Aidan Pratt accounting for seven of those points and Owen Treece pouring in eight, including back-to-back treys. Delphos St. John\u2019s fought back and closed the first quarter with a 9-4 scoring run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Owen Treece finds himself in a tough spot against Delphos St. John’s. It didn’t seem to bother the senior guard though, as he went on to finish with 26 points. Bob Barnes\/Van Wert independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe made some shots and Owen let the game come to him again,\u201d Van Wert head coach Ben Laudick said. \u201cIt was good to get off to a nice little start and we knew that they were going to crank up their pressure and change some things offensively to slowly climb their way back into the game, which is exactly what they did.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both teams struggled to score in the second quarter, with Treece and Nate Jackson accounting for all nine of Van Wert\u2019s points, while Nolan Schwinnen and Landon Elwer each drained triples for the Blue Jays, who closed the period with seven unanswered points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cougars (5-9) opened the third quarter with a 30-19 lead but scored just five points in the period. Matthew Kahny scored six and Landon Grothaus added four for the Blue Jays, who trimmed the deficit to 35-31 by the end of the quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Delphos St. John\u2019s (4-12) trailed by just one, 37-36 and 43-42 in the final period, but couldn\u2019t take the lead. Treece kept the Blue Jays at bay by scoring 10 of his 26 points at crucial times in the fourth quarter, but it was an offensive rebound and return bucket by Nate Jackson with under a minute left that gave Van Wert some breathing room, 49-45.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s no secret that Owen is our go to guy,\u201d Laudick said. \u201cHe waited for screens and make a couple of shot fakes to get those guys moving, and Nate just made a great hustle play on a fast break play that Ethan (Brown) missed, but Nate was there to clean it up and took it from two back to four again. If we don\u2019t make that I\u2019m not 100 percent sure what happens at the end of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat just shows the growth our guys have made from Game No. 1 to Game No. 14,\u201d Laudick continued. I\u2019m not sure we could do that at the beginning of the season but now as we have our basketball legs under us and have been in some different situations, we\u2019re confident that our guys are resilient and are going to make plays.\u201d \u2018<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m proud of our guys, they showed a lot of resilience and toughness tonight,\u201d Delphos St. John\u2019s head coach Aaron Elwer said. \u201cOur guys continued to fight to get it to one possession in the fourth quarter and we started to talk about getting over that hump and taking the lead but it was one of those nights where we never did. We couldn\u2019t get that crucial winning play or winning stop when we needed it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nolan Schwinnen led Delphos St. John\u2019s with 13 points, including eight in the fourth quarter, and Landon Elwer and Landon Grothaus each added 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Wert is scheduled to travel to Elida on Friday and Delphos St. John\u2019s will host Versailles the same night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Van Wert 21 9 5 17 \u2013 52
St. John\u2019s 11 8 12 17 \u2013 48<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Wert: Ethan Brown 1-0-2; Owen Treece 10-4-26; Garett Gunter 0-3-3; Aidan Pratt 5-1-12; Nate Jackson 3-0-7; Connor Pratt 1-0-2<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Delphos St. John\u2019s: Matthew Kahny 3-1-9; JJ Bonifas 0-3-3; Jason Gillespie 1-0-2; Landon Elwer 4-0-10; Nolan Schwinnen 5-1-13; Landon Grothaus 2-6-10<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JV: Van Wert 58-36<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Van Wert head coach Ben Laudick (center) talks to his team in a critical timeout during Tuesday’s game against Delphos St. John’s. Bob Barnes photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent sports editor It wasn\u2019t easy, but the Van Wert Cougars managed to pick up their fourth consecutive win and fifth overall with a thrilling 52-48 win over Delphos St. John\u2019s on Tuesday night. It did look like it might be a Cougar runaway early on as Van Wert raced out to a 17-2 […]<\/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-139825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-05 19:25:27","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\/139825","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=139825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139825\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}