{"id":151451,"date":"2022-02-19T01:09:28","date_gmt":"2022-02-19T06:09:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=151451"},"modified":"2022-02-19T01:09:56","modified_gmt":"2022-02-19T06:09:56","slug":"crestview-clinches-nwc-co-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2022\/02\/19\/crestview-clinches-nwc-co-championship\/","title":{"rendered":"Crestview clinches NWC co-championship"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

CONVOY — Crestview can add more numbers to the NWC boys basketball championship banner that hangs in Ray Etzler Gymnasium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Crestview head coach Doug Etzler celebrates after the Knights clinched a NWC co-championship. Bob Barnes\/Van Wert independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Knights clich\u00e9d a 2021-2022 conference co-championship with Bluffton by defeating Leipsic 64-52 in the regular season finale on Friday. It\u2019s the 19th time Crestview has won at least a share of the NWC basketball championship, tops among all conference teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think many people outside of our program would have given us a chance to win the conference this year but our guys bought into playing as a team and believing in each other and they were able to get it done,\u201d Crestview head coach Doug Etzler said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have one go-to guy but we have really good group that plays unselfish basketball and doesn\u2019t care who scores as long as we get good shots. I\u2019m very proud of this group.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crestview (15-6, 7-1 NWC) led 9-4 after the first quarter, with Gavin Etzler scoring five points and University of Findlay commit Mason Brandt scoring all four of Leipsic\u2019s points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second quarter was a different story. The Knights drained six treys in the quarter, including three by Etzler, two by Rontae Jackson and one by Nate Lichtle and Crestview exploded to a 29-16 halftime lead. Etzler went on to finish with 15 points, while Jackson tallied 12.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce again we were very balanced tonight and that is what it\u2019s going to take for us to be successful,\u201d the elder Etzler said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brandt scored seven of Leipsic\u2019s nine third quarter points but Crestview led 40-25 entering the final stanza. Wren Sheets scored 10 of his 14 points in the fourth quarter, including four buckets and Mitch Temple went 5-for-5 at the foul line. Meanwhile, Brandt exploded for 16 of his game high 31 points in the final period and Paul Maag put in seven of his 13 points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cDefensively I thought we did a good job of making Brandt work for his baskets,\u201d Etzler said. He\u2019s a great player and he showed it again tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crestview was 20-of-45 shooting and 18-of-23 from the free throw line, compared to 17-of-45 and 16-of-18 by Leipsic (14-8, 4-4 NWC). The Vikings finished with a slight rebounding advantage, 23-21.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The No. 1 see Knights have a first round bye at the Division IV sectionals at Van Wert, and will face Fort Jennings or Patrick Henry in the sectional title game at 5:30 on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Box score<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knights 9 20 11 24 \u2013 64
Vikings 4 12 9 17 \u2013 52<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crestview: Gavin Etzler 5-2-15; Rontae Jackson 4-2-12; Mitch Temple 0-5-5; Carson Hunter 1-3-5; Wren Sheets 6-2-14; Nate Lichtle 1-0-3; JJ Ward 1-4-6; Nasir Easterling 2-0-4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leipsic: Mason Brandt 10-9-31; Quin Schroeder 0-2-2; Caleb Ellerbrock 1-0-2; Paul Maag 4-5-13; Estevan Carillo 2-0-4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JV: Crestview 43-33<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent editor CONVOY — Crestview can add more numbers to the NWC boys basketball championship banner that hangs in Ray Etzler Gymnasium. The Knights clich\u00e9d a 2021-2022 conference co-championship with Bluffton by defeating Leipsic 64-52 in the regular season finale on Friday. It\u2019s the 19th time Crestview has won at least a share of […]<\/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-151451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-01 10:33:28","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\/151451","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=151451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151451\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}