{"id":61487,"date":"2015-03-07T10:04:19","date_gmt":"2015-03-07T15:04:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=61487"},"modified":"2015-03-07T10:04:33","modified_gmt":"2015-03-07T15:04:33","slug":"liberty-benton-ends-cougar-boys-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2015\/03\/07\/liberty-benton-ends-cougar-boys-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberty Benton ends Cougar boys’ season"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/b>independent sports<\/i><\/p>\n

FINDLAY — The Van Wert Cougars\u2019 kept it competitive for three quarters, but Liberty Benton stepped on the gas in the fourth quarter to win 61-36 Friday in a Division III sectional finals game played at Findlay High School.<\/p>\n

\"Cougar<\/a>
Cougar Colin Smith (10) runs into Liberty Benton’s defensive pressure during Friday night’s Division III sectional finals loss to Liberty Benton at Findlay High School.<\/strong> (Jan Dunlap\/Van Wert independent)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Eagles (18-5) will go on to meet St. Henry, the other sectional finals winner at Findlay, in a district semifinal game played Thursday at Ohio Northern University.<\/p>\n

Liberty Benton got off to a quick start to lead the Cougars 15-8 at the end of the first quarter. The Eagles were up by 10, 25-15, at the half, but Van Wert was still in it, trailing by 11, 36-25, heading into the final period of play.<\/p>\n

But Liberty Benton dashed Cougar hopes with a 25-11 spurt in the fourth quarter to win by 25 points.<\/p>\n

Van Wert was led by Colin Smith and Connor Holliday, who scored 10 in the game. Holliday, a good free-throw shooter, struggled early in the game, but got back on track in the final quarter to finish 8 of 13 at the line.<\/p>\n

The Eagles were led by Jon Dager\u2019s 19 points, while Nathan Craft added 15 points and Anthony Masterlasco scored 11 for Liberty Benton.<\/p>\n

Liberty Benton\u2019s intense defense crushed the Cougars\u2019 inside game. Van Wert was just 6 of 24 from two-point range (25 percent), while also hitting a quarter of its three-point attempts (4 of 16). The Cougars were 12 of 19 at the free throw line (63.2 percent).<\/p>\n

The Eagles were 19 of 34 from the field (55.9 percent), and also made half of their four attempts from three-point range. Liberty Benton made 21 of 29 foul shot attempts (72.4 percent).<\/p>\n

The Eagles outrebounded Van Wert, 30-20, while also having fewer turnovers (11-14).<\/p>\n

The Cougars end their season at 7-16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent sports FINDLAY — The Van Wert Cougars\u2019 kept it competitive for three quarters, but Liberty Benton stepped on the gas in the fourth quarter to win 61-36 Friday in a Division III sectional finals game played at Findlay High School. The Eagles (18-5) will go on to meet St. Henry, the other sectional […]<\/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-61487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 19:24:54","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\/61487","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=61487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}