{"id":202442,"date":"2026-02-06T23:37:41","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T04:37:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=202442"},"modified":"2026-02-06T23:38:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T04:38:19","slug":"cougars-win-on-the-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2026\/02\/06\/cougars-win-on-the-supreme-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Cougars win on the Supreme Court"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

OTTAWA — The last time the Cougars won a game at Ottawa-Glandorf\u2019s \u201cSupreme Court,\u201d Van Wert head coach Jeremy Best was a sophomore in high school. During the 1989-1990 season, Van Wert defeated the Titans 66-45 and since then, the Cougars had been winless there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That changed Friday night, as Van Wert battled through some foul trouble and converted foul shots down the stretch for a 61-51 victory. The Cougars (15-3, 7-0 WBL) have now won six straight and 12 of their last 13 games.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Van Wert’s Zach Crummey goes up for a first quarter slam dunk during Friday night’s game against Ottawa-Glandorf. Photo courtesy of Monica Campbell<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The win sets up a first place showdown at home with Shawnee next Friday night, with the winner claiming at least a share of the Western Buckeye League championship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese guys continue to \u2018Trust the Process\u2019 and worry less about the outcome,\u201d Best said after the win. \u201cWhat they\u2019ve done is buy them another ticket to play in another game that matters next Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Wert led 16-11 at the end of the first quarter, with Xavier Kelly and Cohen Bragg combining for nine points. The Cougars extended the lead to 23-15, but the Titans answered with a 7-0 scoring run to pull within one. After a Van Wert timeout, Bragg stopped the run with a trey and the Cougars later went into halftime up 26-24.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zach Crummey picked up his third foul early in the third quarter, which sent him to the bench for the remainder of the period, but Keaten Welch stepped up with six points, including a trey to beat the buzzer and gave the Cougars a 42-32 lead. Griffin McCracken added five points in the quarter and Bragg added a pair of baskets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat pleases me most is watching my guys show care and concern for each other \u2013 turning adversity into celebration,\u201d Best said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ottawa-Glandorf\u2019s Jordan Schumaker tried to will the Titans back into it eight of his 10 points in the period, while Brady Fortman accounted for seven of his game high 22 points inte quarter, but the closest the hosts would get was 48-42 with four minutes left in the game. Crummey fouled out with 2:47 remaining, but Van Wert hit nine straight free throws in the final two minutes, including two each by Welch and McCracken and four by Xavier Kelly. The Cougars converted 15-of-18 foul shots in the quarter and finished 19-of-24 for the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Kelly led the Cougars with 18 points, Welch finished with 16, Bragg with 14 and McCracken had 10 points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Wert will host St. Henry (13-4) tonight (4 p.m. junior varsity tipoff) before hosting Shawnee (13-5, 7-0 WBL) and Spencerville next Friday and Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Cougars   16  10  16  19 \u2013 61<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Titans       11  13    8  19 \u2013 51 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Wert:<\/strong> Xavier Kelly 5-6-18; Griffin McCracken 3-2-10; Keaten Welch 3-9-16; Zach Crummey 1-1-3; Cohen Bragg 6-1-14<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ottawa-Glandorf:<\/strong> Brady Fortman 9-2-22; Adam Maag 2-2-6; Nolan Duling 4-0-9; Carson Kaeger 0-1-1; Jordan Schumaker 4-2-10; Royce Ellerbrock 1-0-3<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent sports OTTAWA — The last time the Cougars won a game at Ottawa-Glandorf\u2019s \u201cSupreme Court,\u201d Van Wert head coach Jeremy Best was a sophomore in high school. During the 1989-1990 season, Van Wert defeated the Titans 66-45 and since then, the Cougars had been winless there. That changed Friday night, as Van Wert […]<\/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-202442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 23:45:39","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\/202442","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=202442"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":202444,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202442\/revisions\/202444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}