Kyle Keber (20), wearing a face mask to protect his healing broken nose, goes up for a layup against Defiance on Friday night. The Cougars lost the contest, 49-41. (Jan Dunlap\/Van Wert independent)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nDefiance led by a basket, 10-8, at the end of the first quarter, but the Cougars went on a 15-7 run in the second quarter to lead by six points, 23-17, at the half.<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs started their comeback in the third period, outscoring Van Wert 14-9 to trail by a point, 32-31, at the end of the quarter. Defiance then blew past the Cougars in the final period, doubling the score on Van Wert, 18-9, to garner the win.<\/p>\n
The Cougars had three players in double figures, with Kyle Keber, Matt Bidlack and Connor Holliday, also scoring 10 points in the game. Defiance was led by 15-point offensive performances from Trey Guilliam and Katwan Singleton, while Wes Detter added 9 points for the Bulldogs.<\/p>\n
Three-pointers and free throws were among the keys to Defiance\u2019s win, as were turnovers. While the Cougars had more two-point field goals (10-9), Defiance made five three-pointers, versus three for Van Wert, and was 16 of 20 (80 percent) from the line, compared to the Cougars\u2019 12 of 15 free throw attempts (also 80 percent).<\/p>\n
Van Wert and the Bulldogs each had 18 rebounds in the game, while the Cougars had an unusually high turnover rate of 17, versus just four for Defiance.<\/p>\n
With the loss, Van Wert falls to 8-9 on the year and 2-5 in the WBL, while the Bulldogs are 15-2 overall and 8-1 in league play.<\/p>\n
The Cougars did win the junior varsity game, edging Defiance 41-38. Gavin Gardner scored 16 for the Van Wert JVs, while Colin Smith added 12 point for the Cougars. Kam Singleton led Defiance with 13 points.<\/p>\n
![\"VW](\"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/VW-boys-vs-Defiance-boxscore-2-2014.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DAVE MOSIER\/independent sports The Van Wert Cougars gave the Western Buckeye League-leading Defiance Bulldogs a run for their money \u2026 for one half, at least, but lost 49-41 in a game played Friday in the Cougar\u2019s Den. Defiance led by a basket, 10-8, at the end of the first quarter, but the Cougars went on […]<\/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-48371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-02 18:23:24","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\/48371","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=48371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Kyle](\"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/VW-boys-vs-Defiance-2-2014-K.-Keber.jpg\")
<\/a>