{"id":146177,"date":"2021-09-21T04:04:10","date_gmt":"2021-09-21T09:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=146177"},"modified":"2021-09-21T07:25:12","modified_gmt":"2021-09-21T12:25:12","slug":"random-thoughts-halfway-point-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2021\/09\/21\/random-thoughts-halfway-point-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Random Thoughts: halfway point, more"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong><em>independent sports editor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This week\u2019s edition of Random Thoughts centers around the halfway point of the high school football season, championship races, Van Wert vs. Ottawa-Glandorf, Van Wert&#8217;s state ranking, David vs. Goliath and Fox Sports.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Halfway point<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With five games in the books we\u2019ve reached the halfway point of high school football\u2019s regular season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Western Buckeye League team is a jumbled mess with four teams \u2013 Van Wert, Shawnee, Ottawa-Glandorf and Wapakoneta all tied for first.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Cougars and Titans will play this Friday and Shawnee has a tough game with St. Marys Memorial the same night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tinora leads the Green Meadows Conference race by a game and Marion Local and Coldwater are tied for first in the Midwest Athletic Conference. They\u2019ll meet in Week No. 9 in a game that could decide the conference championship and will undoubtedly produce the biggest 50\/50 jackpot in all of the area.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The NWC title race could come down to a game in Putnam County this Friday night.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Columbus Grove<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Columbus Grove lost a lot of great talent to graduation and many people, myself included, thought this would be a down year for the Bulldogs.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It looks like we were wrong. The three-time defending champions are 5-0 (2-0 NWC) and they\u2019ve looked good winning all five games. The Bulldogs will play at Leipsic on Friday, a game that could be considered as the NWC championship game. Whichever team wins will be in the driver\u2019s seat the rest of the way.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s not a good idea to underestimate a championship culture and that\u2019s what Columbus Grove has.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cougars vs. Titans<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No doubt you know Van Wert will host Ottawa-Glandorf this Friday night in a key WBL game. The winner will stay in the title race while the loser will need some help to stay in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The last four Van Wert\/Ottawa-Glandorf games have gone like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>2020 \u2013 O-G 35-34<\/li><li>2019 \u2013 O-G 35-28 (OT)<\/li><li>2018 \u2013 VW 40-34 (OT)<\/li><li>2017 \u2013 VW 19-17<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>What does 2021\u2019s game hold in store? It won\u2019t be a surprise if it\u2019s another barnburner. A full preview will appear on Wednesday\u2019s Sports page.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>State ranking<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After last Friday&#8217;s loss to St. Marys Memorial, Van Wert slipped to No. 7 in this week&#8217;s Associated Press Division IV poll. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>I do believe a couple of things helped the Cougars from falling even more. One is the fact that the Roughriders are a Division III team and the other is the fact that St. Marys Memorial is a familiar name among AP voters. Also, a one touchdown margin probably played a role as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>David vs. Goliath<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the more intriguing high school football games played last week featured two unbeaten teams \u2013 Division II Lakewood and Division VII Lucas.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The game was hastily put together on Tuesday. Lakewood has close to 1,500 students while Lucas has about 160 students but Lucas won the game 35-27 and by most accounts, it really wasn\u2019t that close.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was truly a remarkable win for Lucas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Fox Sports<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I don\u2019t want to be that guy but I\u2019m just going to come out and say it. In some ways, college football has become nearly unwatchable on Fox Sports.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While some people may disagree, the announcers are fine but games on Fox or FS1 take forever, simply because of the endless and somewhat lengthy commercial breaks.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I fully understand that Fox needs to sell commercials to cover the cost of carrying the games, but these games drag on for close to four hours with very little or no flow.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Say what you will about the NFL, but those games, especially on CBS, are done in three hours and actually have flow.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have thoughts or comments on any of the above topics, feel free to email me at&nbsp;<a href=\"mailto:sports@thevwindependent.com\">sports@thevwindependent.com<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent sports editor This week\u2019s edition of Random Thoughts centers around the halfway point of the high school football season, championship races, Van Wert vs. Ottawa-Glandorf, Van Wert&#8217;s state ranking, David vs. Goliath and Fox Sports.&nbsp; Halfway point With five games in the books we\u2019ve reached the halfway point of high school football\u2019s regular [&hellip;]<\/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-146177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-18 11:42:18","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\/146177","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=146177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}