btzweber@bright.net

OTTOVILLE — Friday night, the Van Wert Cougars of head coach Dave Froelich traveled east down State Route 224 to take on the Big Green of Ottoville in a non-league contest at L.W. Heckman Gymnasium.

The game brought back memories of when the two schools used to play against each other several years ago.

The Cougars used some clutch fourth-quarter foul shooting to come away with the win 43-37.

For more than three quarters, Ottoville gave the Cougars all they could handle, battling to a 28-all tie to end the third quarter before the Cougars got a big 3-pointer from senior forward A.J. Smith to give them a cushion.

“I thought we did a great job defensively,” explained Ottoville coach Todd Turnwald. “The kids did a great job executing our game plan. It just came down to executing at the end - little things like rebounding and foul shots.”

The Big Green came out and attempted to slow the game down on the offensive side of the ball and did, shooting only 29 times and holding Van Wert to 33.