{"id":202139,"date":"2026-01-30T23:49:02","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T04:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=202139"},"modified":"2026-01-30T23:49:04","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T04:49:04","slug":"vw-cougars-race-by-the-roughriders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2026\/01\/30\/vw-cougars-race-by-the-roughriders\/","title":{"rendered":"VW Cougars race by the Roughriders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

Much of the first quarter of Friday\u2019s game between Van Wert and St. Marys Memorial was back and forth but after that, it was all Cougars, who cruised to an 88-50 win over the Roughriders at Van Wert High School. The 88 points was the most scored in a game by Van Wert since the 2006-2007 season, when the Cougars beat Shawnee 84-63.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a game that saw all five Van Wert starters hit double digits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Late in the opening period, St. Marys Memorial (2-12, 0-6 WBL) led Van Wert 14-13, but Keaten Welch hit back-to-back triples from the left wing, with the second one coming at the buzzer and giving the Cougars a 19-14 lead. Welch\u2019s long distance shots proved to be the catalyst for what was to come next \u2013 18 unanswered points that were part of a 23-1 scoring run, and consecutive 29 point quarters by Van Wert. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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Not even two defenders could stop Xavier Kelly, who scored 18 points against the Roughriders. Bob Barnes\/Van Wert independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cI called a timeout in the first quarter and we talked about playing with more purpose on the defensive end,\u201d Van Wert head coach Jeremy Best said. \u201cEverything for them was really way too easy and once Keaten hit two huge threes that kind of propelled us and gave us gave us some momentum, but it started on the defensive end like it always does with us. If you want to get on a run, you have to get stops. I thought offensively we did a really good job of making the extra pass, looking up the floor, working inside out against the zone and stepping into shots and the ball went through the hoop tonight \u2013 when that happens, everything looks easy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Xavier Kelly scored 11 of his 18 points in the second quarter as the Cougars stretched their lead to 38-17. Late in the period, Kaiven Welch and Griffin McCracken drilled consecutive treys and gave Van Wert a commanding 48-23 halftime advantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCracken scored eight of his 13 points, Cohen Bragg scored seven of his 13 points and Zach Crummey accounted for five of his 15 points in the third quarter, and Van Wert\u2019s lead ballooned to 77-43 by the end of the period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have a bunch of selfless guys that work real hard to get each other shots and make plays for each other,\u201d Best said. \u201cA lot of that starts with our point guard. \u2018X\u2019 (Xavier Kelly) played a really good floor game for us tonight and he sets the table for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kaiven Welch added a pair of treys in the fourth quarter, which was largely played with reserves by both teams. Freshman Brayson Davis scored five points in the period for Van Wert and the latter half of the quarter was played with a continuous clock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cKaiven is kind of an unsung hero,\u201d Best said. \u201cThe kids love him and he\u2019s a phenomenal teammate. He comes to practice and works his rear end off, he\u2019s always got a smile on his face and as a coach that\u2019s very rewarding when you see guys get rewarded for that and tonight I was very happy for Kaiven.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a good shooting night overall for the Cougars, who hit 31-of-53 shot attempts (58 percent) and 13-of-14 free throw attempts. Van Wert had just five turnovers, compared to 16 by the Roughriders. St. Marys converted 21-of-40 shots and just 1-of-4 foul shots. Each team had 19 rebounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Wert (14-3, 6-0 WBL) remains in a first-place tie with Shawnee and will travel to Ottawa-Glandorf in a key WBL game Friday night. The Titans lost to Bath 45-33 on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always had a bunch of respect for O-G and Tyson (McGlaughlin),\u201d Best said. \u201cI just hope our guys come back ready and prepared and have a good week of prep and stay healthy. I think we\u2019ll go over there play with good purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Wert won the junior varsity contest in exciting fashion. Easton Putman hit a pair of free throw with 0.2 seconds left, giving the Cougars a 43-41 win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Van Wert  19  29  29  11 \u2013 88<\/p>\n\n\n\n

St. Marys  14  11  18    7 \u2013 50<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Wert:<\/strong> Kaiven Welch 3-0-9; Xavier Kelly 8-0-18; Griffin McCracken 4-2-13; Keaten Welch 4-3-13; Brayson Davis 2-0-5; Caden Collins 1-0-2; Zach Crummey 5-5-15; Cohen Bragg 5-3-13<\/p>\n\n\n\n

St. Marys Memorial:<\/strong> Blake Dingledine 4-1-10; Cayden Geiger 3-0-6; Reese Howell 1-0-3; Clayton Rhodes 1-0-2; Kasey Gross 5-0-13; John Youngs 1-0-2; Cale Rice 1-0-2; Kaiden Ibarra 1-0-2; Bruno Klobunde 1-0-2; Aiden Minerding 1-0-3; Huck Hertenstein 2-0-5<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent sports Much of the first quarter of Friday\u2019s game between Van Wert and St. Marys Memorial was back and forth but after that, it was all Cougars, who cruised to an 88-50 win over the Roughriders at Van Wert High School. The 88 points was the most scored in a game by Van […]<\/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-202139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 21:56:47","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\/202139","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=202139"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":202142,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202139\/revisions\/202142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}