Cougars rally, stun state ranked Wauseon

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent sports editor

FINDLAY — It didn’t look good for Van Wert.

The Cougars trailed state ranked and No. 2 seed Wauseon 25-7 in the second quarter but used an 8-0 run, including a pair of three pointers by Owen Treece to help close the gap to 10, 27-17 at halftime.

From there, Van Wert enjoyed a 40-26 second half scoring advantage to stun the Indians 57-53 and claim the upper bracket Division II sectional championship at Findlay on Friday.

The win, which avenged last year’s 51-41 postseason loss to the Indians, means the Cougars (15-9) will face Defiance in the district semifinals at Ohio Northern on Wednesday.

“It was kind of a surreal, unbelievable ending and I’m so proud of our kids right now,” Van Wert head coach Mark Bagley said.

While the second quarter scoring run started the ball rolling, the third quarter set the tone in the comeback win, as the Cougars outscored the Indians 23-9. Nate Place scored seven points of his 11 points in the period, Owen Treece added five and Lawson Blackmore chipped in with four to help put Van Wert up 40-36 at the end of the period.

“Nate is a happy-go-lucky, free spirited guy, but his eyes at halftime were laser locked in” Van Wert head coach Mark Bagley said. “I’ve never seen him like that before and he kind of took over that third quarter and it was incredible to watch our guys feed off that emotion. “

We just played really good basketball in the third quarter and moved the ball well and we started rebounding well, because we had done it so poorly in the first half.”

Drew Bagley scored six of his 11 points in the fourth quarter, Blake Henry added five of his 11 and Treece tacked on four more and finished with 15.
There were some anxious moments in the final minutes, as the Cougars misfired on five consecutive free throws, and Wauseon’s Trent Armstrong drained a trey to make it a one point game, 54-53 with 10.7 seconds remaining. The Indians had a chance to win, but turned it over with 4.5 seconds left.

“We had the right people at the line – we had Drew, Owen and Nate – and they just missed them,” Bagley explained. “We had to expend a lot of energy to get back in the game and we missed some front ends, but we kept on battling and we got a couple of great stops defensively as well.”

“Blake Henry did an outstanding job on their best guard (Armstrong) and he stepped out of bounds, then Drew hit two big free throws to put us up by three.”

Henry added one more foul shot to seal the win.

“We used the word grit all week and our kids showed a tremendous amount of grit tonight,” Bagley said.

After shooting 26 percent in the first half, Van Wert ended up shooting 51 percent for the game, while Wauseon shot 55 percent in the first half, but ended up 38 percent for the game.

Armstrong led Wauseon with 20 points, Levi Seiler had 15 and Sean Brock finished with 12.

Van Wert will play Defiance in the second game (8 p.m.) Wednesday at Ohio Northern, with the winner advancing to the district finals against either Shawnee or Elida. The Cougars topped the Bulldogs 67-58 last Friday.

Scoring summary

Van Wert 6 11 23 17 – 57
Wauseon 13 14 9 17 – 53

Van Wert: Owen Treece 6-0-15; Nate Place 5-0-11; Blake Henry 4-3-11; Lawson Blackmore 4-1-9; Drew Bagley 4-2-11

Wauseon: Levi Seiler 6-3-15; Trent Armstrong 7-1-20; Noah Tester 2-0-5; Sean Brock 5-1-12; Trevor Rodriguez 0-1-1