Crestview’s Cam Etzler (5) goes up for a shot against New Madison Tri-Village in a Division IV state semifinal game Thursday won by the Knights, 54-50. (Ashley Baxter\/for the Van Wert independent)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nIt was a No. 1 vs. No. 2 battle between the Knights and Patriots, who both showed they earned those state rankings during an intense battle on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Tri-Village led 16-12 at the end of a quarter and the Patriots were up by five points, 24-19, at the half. The Knights then ratcheted down the defense in the third quarter, forcing Tri-Village into turnovers while upping the level of their offensive game to outscore the Patriots 15-4 in the third period for a six-point lead, 34-28, at the end of the period. Tri-Village came back in the fourth quarter to outscore Crestview 22-20 but just couldn\u2019t get over the hump against the Knights\u2019 stingy defense.<\/p>\n
It was a matter of making free throws down the stretch and Crestview, a 76-percent free-throw shooting team, was up to the challenge, with Damian Helm a perfect 10-for-10 at the charity stripe, including 6-of-6 in the final minute of play.<\/p>\n
Tyson Bolenbaugh led the Knights with 15 points, while Cam Etzler had 13, including 6-of-8 from the line, and Helm scored 10 points on free throws for his offensive total.<\/p>\n
Tyler Cook led Tri-Village and all scorers with 20 points, with Damion Cook adding 16 points for the Patriots, who had only four players score in the game.<\/p>\n
Crestview was 14 of 37 from the field (37.8 percent), including 4 of 14 from three-point range (28.5 percent). The Knights won the game from the free throw line, though, canning 22 of 27 free throw attempts (81.5 percent).<\/p>\n
Tri-Village was 18 of 41 from the field (43.9 percent), including 4 of 8 (50 percent) from three-point range. The Patriots were 10 of 13 from the free throw line (76.9 percent).<\/p>\n
The rebounding edge went to Tri-Village, which brought down 29 boards to 23 for the Knights, while Crestview had fewer turnovers, 9-15, than the Patriots.<\/p>\n
Tri-Village ends its season at 26-2, while the Knights (28-0) now play Louisville St. Thomas Aquinas (18-11), \u00a0for the Division IV state title. Aquinas defeated Canal Winchester Harvest Prep (26-1) in the other state semifinal game. Game time is at 1:30 p.m. Saturday.<\/p>\n
![\"Crestview](\"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Crestview-boys-vs.-Tri-Village-state-semis-boxscore-3-2014.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DAVE MOSIER\/independent sports COLUMBUS — One more to go. The Crestview Knights are headed to the Division IV state finals after a gritty 54-50 win over New Madison Tri-Village in a state semifinals game played Thursday at the Schottenstein Center on the campus of Ohio State University. It was a No. 1 vs. No. 2 […]<\/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-49769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-26 12:58:53","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\/49769","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=49769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49769\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Crestview's](\"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Crestview-boys-vs.-Tri-Village-state-semifinals-3-2014-Etzler.jpg\")
<\/a>