{"id":73503,"date":"2016-02-16T08:53:03","date_gmt":"2016-02-16T13:53:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=73503"},"modified":"2016-02-16T08:53:03","modified_gmt":"2016-02-16T13:53:03","slug":"cougar-seniors-get-final-home-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2016\/02\/16\/cougar-seniors-get-final-home-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Cougar seniors get final home victory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>DAVE MOSIER\/<\/strong><em>independent sports<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Appropriately for Van Wert\u2019s Senior Night, three Cougar seniors combined for all but 8 of Van Wert\u2019s points as the Cougars defeated Ottoville 53-37 in a non-league boys\u2019 basketball game in the Cougars\u2019 Den. It was the final home game of the regular season.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_73505\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-73505\" style=\"width: 350px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-73505\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/VW-boys-vs.-Ottoville-2-15-16-Smith.jpg\" alt=\"Cougar senior Colin Smith (10) scores two of his 22 points during Friday night's 53-37 non-conference win over Ottoville. (Bob Barnes\/Van Wert independent)\" width=\"350\" height=\"554\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-73505\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Cougar senior Colin Smith (10) scores two of his 22 points during Friday night&#8217;s 53-37 non-conference win over Ottoville.<\/strong> <em>(Bob Barnes\/Van Wert independent)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Colin Smith had 22 points, while Ryan McCracken added 14 points, including four treys, and Josh Braun had 9 points to lead the Cougars. The only Van Wert player scoring was sophomore Jacoby Kelly, who had 8 points on the night. Nick Moorman led the Big Green with 16 points.<\/p>\n<p>The Cougars (5-16) and Ottoville (4-17) have both struggled this year offensively, but Van Wert definitely wanted this game more.<\/p>\n<p>Van Wert got off to a quick start, outpointing the Big Green 11-4 in the first quarter to lead by 7 points. The Van Wert lead was 11 points at the half, 26-15.<\/p>\n<p>Ottoville outscored the Cougars 14-12 in the third quarter to cut Van Wert lead to 9, 38-29, but the Cougars pulled away in the final stanza to preserve the victory.<\/p>\n<p>Van Wert was 23 of 51 (45.1 percent) from the field, including 5 of 16 from three-point range (31.3 percent). The Big Green made 13 of 30 from the field (43.3 percent), including 4 of 11 three-point attempts (36.4 percent).<\/p>\n<p>The Cougars were cold at the free throw line, knocking down just 2 of 6 attempts at the line (33.3 percent). Ottoville was 7 of 13 from the line (53.8 percent).<\/p>\n<p>Van Wert dominated on the boards, bringing down 30 rebounds to 19 for the Big Green. The Cougars also had fewer turnovers than Ottoville, 10-15.<\/p>\n<p>There was no junior varsity prior to the contest, although Van Wert Elementary School fourth-graders played a brief game prior to the start of the varsity contest.<\/p>\n<p>Van Wert ends its regular season this Friday on the road with its final Western Buckeye League contest against Wapakoneta.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-73504\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/VW-boys-vs-Ottoville-boxscore-2-2016.jpg\" alt=\"VW boys vs Ottoville boxscore 2-2016\" width=\"545\" height=\"147\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DAVE MOSIER\/independent sports Appropriately for Van Wert\u2019s Senior Night, three Cougar seniors combined for all but 8 of Van Wert\u2019s points as the Cougars defeated Ottoville 53-37 in a non-league boys\u2019 basketball game in the Cougars\u2019 Den. It was the final home game of the regular season. Colin Smith had 22 points, while Ryan McCracken [&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-73503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-18 14:37:10","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\/73503","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=73503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73503\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}