{"id":94651,"date":"2017-10-26T00:02:32","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T05:02:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=94651"},"modified":"2017-10-25T14:29:56","modified_gmt":"2017-10-25T19:29:56","slug":"vw-cougars-hope-to-finish-with-a-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2017\/10\/26\/vw-cougars-hope-to-finish-with-a-win\/","title":{"rendered":"VW Cougars hope to finish with a win"},"content":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong>independent sports editor<\/em><\/p>\n

Heading into Friday\u2019s season finale at Defiance, the Van Wert Cougars have a collective eye on a win, and a 5-5 finish.<\/p>\n

To get the win, the Cougars will have to shake off last week\u2019s 63-21 loss to Celina. Quarterback Nate Place missed the game due to illness, and he\u2019s out for Friday\u2019s matchup. Jake Hilleary and Owen Treece took snaps in his absence, and both could do so against the Bulldogs.<\/p>\n

\u201cJake is going to start at quarterback,\u201d Van Wert head coach Keith Recker said. \u201cBoth guys will play, just possibly at different positions. Jake can play tailback as well as quarterback, and Owen will play some slot receiver as well as quarterback. How much each quarterback plays really depends on how we are doing moving the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Jacoby Kelly will play in his final game for Van Wert.<\/strong> Jerry Mason photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Against Celina, Hilleary completed 7 of 16 passes for 121 yards and a touchdown and he ran for a score, while Treece connected on 6 of 9 passes for 54 yards.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest thing is that we now have game film on each one and can help each of them progress as a quarterback,\u201d Recker said. \u201cBeing put in game situations is much different than doing it in practice against the scout team.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought Jake did a good job running the ball, which is what we were hoping for,\u201d Recker added. \u201cOwen did a nice job, for example, timing up the pass to Jacoby (Kelly) on the touchdown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defiance (1-9, 1-8 WBL) has struggled offensively and defensively this season, averaging just over 225 yards per and 11 points per game, while giving up more than 380 yards and 40 points per contest.<\/p>\n

Despite those numbers, Recker knows the Cougars will be in for a fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoach (Kevin) Kline is a very good coach,\u201dRecker said. \u201cWe played him when he was the coach at Bryan, so he knows what he’s doing. He will have them ready to compete with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

His son (Caden Kline), who is a sophomore, starts at quarterback for them. Being a coach’s kid, he likely has a lot of knowledge of their offense and studies film quite a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have a tailback (JD McNett) who is dangerous if he gets in the open field. He had a 78-yard touchdown run against Ottawa-Glandorf during the first series where he ran away from all of their defenders.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Cougars were eliminated from playoff contention with last week\u2019s loss to Celina, but Recker believes a victory in the season finale would be big going into the off-season.<\/p>\n

\u201cComing off an 0-10 year, few people probably thought we’d be in this position,\u201d Recker explained. \u201cWe started the year 3-1 in our first four games and have a chance to end the year 2-1 in our last three games. With a good core of guys returning, getting this win will keep them excited and hungry as we go into the off-season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s Van Wert at Defiance game will air live on WERT 1220AM and 104.3FM, and will stream live at www.thevwindependent.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent sports editor Heading into Friday\u2019s season finale at Defiance, the Van Wert Cougars have a collective eye on a win, and a 5-5 finish. To get the win, the Cougars will have to shake off last week\u2019s 63-21 loss to Celina. Quarterback Nate Place missed the game due to illness, and he\u2019s out […]<\/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-94651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 12:41:46","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\/94651","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=94651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94651\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}