{"id":151376,"date":"2022-02-17T04:53:36","date_gmt":"2022-02-17T09:53:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=151376"},"modified":"2022-02-17T04:53:39","modified_gmt":"2022-02-17T09:53:39","slug":"knights-playing-for-nwc-co-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2022\/02\/17\/knights-playing-for-nwc-co-championship\/","title":{"rendered":"Knights playing for NWC co-championship"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

CONVOY — It\u2019s come down to Friday\u2019s regular season finale between Crestview and Leipsic and it\u2019s a pretty simple scenario.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Vikings can’t win the title but they can play the role of spoiler. If the Knights (14-6, 6-1 NWC) defeat Leipsic, they’ll claim a Northwest Conference co-championship with Bluffton (18-2, 7-1 NWC), but a loss to the Vikings means the Pirates will be crowned as outright conference champions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The emergence of freshman Wren Sheets (44) has been big for the Crestview Knights. Bob Barnes\/Van Wert independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In some ways, it seems as though it\u2019s been a quiet run to a possible co-championship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After losing last year\u2019s top two scorers (Kalen Etzler, Carson Kreischer) to graduation, but knowing several other players (Gavin Etzler, Rontae Jackson, Mitch Temple, Carson Hunter, JJ Ward, Nate Lichtle) were returning, head coach Doug Etzler had mixed thoughts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know what the season would hold as far as the Northwest Conference,\u201d Etzler explained. \u201cWe had a lot of teams that were similar to us with a lot of guys coming back but they weren\u2019t the main guys last year. I saw some good things during the summer and I thought we had a chance to be pretty good but could we do it on game night in front of a crowd?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI did think we had a chance to be pretty competitive,\u201d the coach added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crestview\u2019s lone conference loss came on the road at Bluffton, 49-48, on January 7. Four Fridays later, the Pirates suffered their only NWC loss, 57-46 to defending champion Columbus Grove, putting the Knights right back in the title chase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three of Crestview\u2019s six losses came in a midseason six-game span and that\u2019s when Etzler decided to put 6-5 freshman forward\/post Wren Sheets on the floor more often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe had a big game for us against Minster (nine rebounds, two blocked shots, four points) and I thought it was time to give us a little more size inside so Rontae could guard a guard instead of guarding the post and we could have a true post player inside, a back to the basket type of guy,\u201d Etzler said. \u201cEverybody has gotten better and we\u2019ve mixed the lineup up a little bit and we\u2019ve been playing some good ball down the stretch.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The coach said scoring has been by committee, which has meant getting the ball to whichever player has the hot hand that night. Another big factor in the run to a possible co-championship is the defensive play of the Knights, who have held 14 opponents to 47 points or less this season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To earn a share of this year\u2019s NWC crown, the defense will have to be ready for Leipsic\u2019s Mason Brandt. The 6-4 senior, who has committed to play collegiate basketball at the University of Findlay, is averaging 28.8 points per game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBrandt\u2019s the best player in our league,\u201d Etzler stated. \u201cHe\u2019s averaging close to 30 points per game and he\u2019s going to score, so we have to try to make it tough for him to get clean looks. They have some complimentary players to go with him with (Paul) Maag inside and the have (Dillan) Niese who\u2019s coming back from an injury.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brandt is a load and he\u2019s scored 40 a couple of times this year, and they\u2019ve been very competitive (14-7, 4-3 NWC) their first year in the conference,\u201d Etzler added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should the Knights win Friday\u2019s game, it would be the program\u2019s 19th NWC basketball championship or co-championship, tops among all conference schools.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent editor CONVOY — It\u2019s come down to Friday\u2019s regular season finale between Crestview and Leipsic and it\u2019s a pretty simple scenario. The Vikings can’t win the title but they can play the role of spoiler. If the Knights (14-6, 6-1 NWC) defeat Leipsic, they’ll claim a Northwest Conference co-championship with Bluffton (18-2, 7-1 […]<\/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-151376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-01 12:56:13","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\/151376","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=151376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}