{"id":202968,"date":"2026-02-22T21:05:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T02:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=202968"},"modified":"2026-02-22T21:05:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T02:05:12","slug":"sectionals-to-begin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2026\/02\/22\/sectionals-to-begin\/","title":{"rendered":"Sectionals to begin!"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"550\" height=\"469\" src=\"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Zach-Crummey-2-22-2026.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-202969\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Boys sectional basketball games will tip off this week. Zach Crummey (23) and the No. 1 seed Van Wert Cougars will host No. 7 seed Napoleon in Division IV sectional championship action at 6 p.m.Thursday night, with the winner advancing to next week\u2019s Paulding district. At 6 p.m. Friday, Max Hammons (2) and the top seeded Lincolnview Lancers will host No. 7 seed Hicksville for the sectional championship and a spot in the district semfinals in Defiance. Crestview has a sectional bye and will face Ayersville or Fairview March 4 at Defiance. <em>Photos by Bob Barnes and Hanna Young<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"550\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Max-Hammons-2-2026.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-202970\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Max-Hammons-2-2026.jpg 550w, https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Max-Hammons-2-2026-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Boys sectional basketball games will tip off this week. Zach Crummey (23) and the No. 1 seed Van Wert Cougars will host No. 7 seed Napoleon in Division IV sectional championship action at 6 p.m.Thursday night, with the winner advancing to next week\u2019s Paulding district. At 6 p.m. Friday, Max Hammons (2) and the top [&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-202968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-04 11:19:36","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\/202968","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=202968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":202971,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202968\/revisions\/202971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}