{"id":20222,"date":"2012-02-06T04:31:57","date_gmt":"2012-02-06T09:31:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/?p=20222"},"modified":"2012-02-06T04:31:57","modified_gmt":"2012-02-06T09:31:57","slug":"cougars-rebound-with-win-over-bluffton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2012\/02\/06\/cougars-rebound-with-win-over-bluffton\/","title":{"rendered":"Cougars rebound with win over Bluffton"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>DAVE MOSIER\/<\/strong><em>independent sports<\/em><\/p>\n<p>BLUFFTON \u2013 The Van Wert Cougars rebounded from a tough home loss Friday to Western Buckeye League leader Defiance, earning a 59-44 non-conference away victory over the Northwest Conference\u2019s Bluffton Pirates on Saturday.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_20224\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-20224\" style=\"width: 320px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-20224 \" style=\"border: 1px solid black\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/VW-boys-vs.-Bluffton-2-2012-Myers.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"320\" height=\"508\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-20224\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Van Wert&#039;s Jacob Myers (15) fights for a rebound during Saturday&#039;s game against Bluffton. The Cougars won the non-conference game 59-44. (Jan Dunlap\/Van Wert independent)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Cougars led by only a basket, 11-9, after a quarter of play, but a 17-7 run in the second stanza put Van Wert ahead to stay with a 28-16 halftime lead.<\/p>\n<p>It was much closer in the second half, but the Cougars outscored Bluffton 31-28 to preserve the non-conference victory.<\/p>\n<p>Jacob Myers and Reggie Phillips led the Van Wert offense with 20 points apiece &#8212; the only Cougar players in double figures. The Pirates were led by Mike Gillett\u2019s 20 points, while Mike Donnelly added 13 points for Bluffton.<\/p>\n<p>After a subpar shooting night against Defiance, Van Wert returned to normal on Saturday, hitting 3 of 5 three-point attempts (60 percent), 20 of 33 from two-point range (60.6 percent) and 10 of 15 from the free throw line (66.7 percent). The Pirates hit 9 of 16 three-pointers (56.3 percent), were 7 of 18 from two-point range (38.9 percent) 3 of 4 from the charity stripe (75 percent).<\/p>\n<p>The Cougars had the advantage in rebounds, 24-11, and also had fewer turnovers, 13-19, than Bluffton.<\/p>\n<p>With the win, Van Wert is now 11-4 on the year.<\/p>\n<p>The Cougar junior varsity team also got back on the win trail with a 49-32 victory over Bluffton. Michael Smelser and Matt Bidlack led Van Wert with 10 points apiece. Robbie Stratton was the Pirates\u2019 top scorer, also with 10 points.<\/p>\n<p>The Cougar JVs are now 14-1 on the year.<\/p>\n<p>Van Wert will next play Friday at WBL foe Wapakoneta, with a home game Saturday against St. Henry from the Midwest Athletic Conference.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-20223\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/VW-boys-vs.-Bluffton-boxscore-2-2012.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"545\" height=\"201\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DAVE MOSIER\/independent sports BLUFFTON \u2013 The Van Wert Cougars rebounded from a tough home loss Friday to Western Buckeye League leader Defiance, earning a 59-44 non-conference away victory over the Northwest Conference\u2019s Bluffton Pirates on Saturday. The Cougars led by only a basket, 11-9, after a quarter of play, but a 17-7 run in the [&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-20222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-06 02:21:19","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\/20222","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=20222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20222\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}