{"id":67674,"date":"2015-09-05T07:56:05","date_gmt":"2015-09-05T12:56:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=67674"},"modified":"2015-09-05T07:56:48","modified_gmt":"2015-09-05T12:56:48","slug":"cougars-lose-heartbreaker-at-st-marys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2015\/09\/05\/cougars-lose-heartbreaker-at-st-marys\/","title":{"rendered":"Cougars lose heartbreaker at St. Marys"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

ST. MARYS — It\u2019s sometimes the little things that mean the difference between a win and a loss. For the Van Wert Cougars, it was a missed extra point and a failed defensive stop late in the fourth quarter that led to a 21-20 loss to St. Marys in both teams\u2019 Western Buckeye League opener at Skip Baughman Field in St. Marys.<\/p>\n

Van Wert got on the scoreboard first when quarterback Colin Smith ran the ball in from the Roughrider 7-yard-line for a 6-0 lead. Gavin Gardner kicked the point-after and the Cougars were up 7-0 with 5:29 remaining in the first period.<\/p>\n

\"Cougar<\/a>
Cougar quarterback Colin Smith (8) tries to get around a St. Marys defender during Friday’s game against the Roughriders.<\/strong> (Jan Dunlap\/Van Wert independent)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Van Wert scored again with 9:40 left in the second stanza when Smith connected with Josh Braun for a 29-yard scoring strike that gave the Cougars a 14-0 lead after Gardner\u2019s PAT kick.<\/p>\n

Six minutes later, Justice Tussing gave Van Wert a 20-0 lead with a 4-yard TD run with 3:35 left in the first half.<\/p>\n

But now the Roughriders were ready to ramble. Quarterback Dustin Howell found Seth Vorhees at the Cougar 2-yard-line for St. Marys\u2019 first score of the game with no time remaining on the second-quarter clock. Gabe Vandeveer kicked the extra point and the Roughriders went into the locker room trailing 20-7.<\/p>\n

St. Marys scored again in the third quarter when Eric Speicer ran 46 yards for a TD with 6:30 remaining in the quarter. Vandeveer again kicked the extra point and the Riders were now within a touchdown of leading, 20-14.<\/p>\n

Following unsuccessful drives in the final stanza, St. Marys put one more drive together, as Logan Maze scored on a two-yard run with just 32 seconds left on the clock as the Roughriders had their only lead of the night, 21-20. Van Wert then fumbled on the ensuing kick-off to lose any chance of scoring one last time.<\/p>\n

The Roughriders compiled 422 yards of total offense, including 268 yards on the ground. Van Wert had 257 yards of offense, including 138 yards through the air.<\/p>\n

Smith was the Cougars\u2019 top rusher with 74 yards and a touchdown, while Speicer rushed for 156 yards and a TD for St. Marys.<\/p>\n

Braun had three catches for 56 yards and a touchdown, while Smith was 10 of 17 passing for 138 yards and a TD. Howell threw 12 completions in 23 attempts for 158 yards, a touchdown and one interception.<\/p>\n

With the loss, the Cougars fall to 1-1 overall and 0-1 in the WBL. St. Marys is now 2-0 overall and 1-0 in league play.<\/p>\n

Van Wert will try to get its first WBL victory of the season when it hosts Ottawa-Glandorf this coming Friday at Eggerss Stadium for the team\u2019s home opener.<\/p>\n

\"VW<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent sports ST. MARYS — It\u2019s sometimes the little things that mean the difference between a win and a loss. For the Van Wert Cougars, it was a missed extra point and a failed defensive stop late in the fourth quarter that led to a 21-20 loss to St. Marys in both teams\u2019 Western […]<\/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-67674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-02 23:57:38","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\/67674","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=67674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}