{"id":204436,"date":"2026-04-01T19:38:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T00:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=204436"},"modified":"2026-04-01T19:38:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T00:38:26","slug":"cougar-basketball-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2026\/04\/01\/cougar-basketball-awards\/","title":{"rendered":"Cougar basketball awards"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"550\" height=\"425\" src=\"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/VWbasketball_awardwinners2026.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-204439\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>After a 19-7 (8-1 WBL) season that included sectional and district championships and a trip to the Division IV regional semifinals, the Van Wert boys basketball program held its annual awards program Tuesday night. Show above, left to right, are: Kaiven Welch: &#8220;Pride Award&#8221;; Keaten Welch: Third Team All-WBL; Cohen Bragg: Second Team All-WBL, Honorable Mention All-Northwest District; Zach Crummey: &#8220;Chairman&nbsp;of The Boards&#8221;, Second Team WBL, Honorable Mention All-Northwest District; Xavier Kelly: &#8220;Cougar Award&#8221;, First Team All -WBL, Second Team All-Northwest District, Second Team District 8, Honorable Mention All-Ohio; Griffin McCracken: &#8220;Claw Award&#8221;, Third Team All-WBL, and Caden Collins: &#8220;Grit Award&#8221;, Honorable Mention All-WBL. <em>Photos submitted<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"550\" height=\"419\" src=\"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DistrictTrophy_gameball_seniors.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-204440\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Van Wert coaches presenting the District Championship trophy and game ball to the seniors: Coach Helm, Coach Best, Griffin McCracken, Kaiven Welch, Coach Shindeldecker, and Coach Altimus.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"550\" height=\"440\" src=\"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Sweet16_Plaques.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-204441\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Members of the &#8220;Sweet 16&#8221; team, consisting of members of both the cheerleading\u00a0and basketball teams, received\u00a0commemorative plaques from Coach Best and Cheer Coach Jacque Welch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After a 19-7 (8-1 WBL) season that included sectional and district championships and a trip to the Division IV regional semifinals, the Van Wert boys basketball program held its annual awards program Tuesday night. Show above, left to right, are: Kaiven Welch: &#8220;Pride Award&#8221;; Keaten Welch: Third Team All-WBL; Cohen Bragg: Second Team All-WBL, Honorable [&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-204436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-07 22:34:23","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\/204436","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=204436"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":204473,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204436\/revisions\/204473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}