Southern Ohio Sports Authority is presented by OhioHealth.
PHOTO CREDITS: Ed Litteral/Portsmouth Daily Times
WAVERLY — Cruise control. That’s the gear South Webster was in this past weekend.
Usually, to win a district championship, there’s some heavy lifting involved. But for the Jeeps, Saturday’s sweep of Meigs was just their latest straight-set win — there just happened to be a district crown on the line.
South Webster (25-0) handed the Marauders a 25-18, 25-15, 25-10 loss in a Division III district final to claim their sixth straight 3-0 victory, and the 21st of the year.
To further prove the point of the Jeeps’ dominance, they’re 75-6 in individual sets this fall.
“We knew we really had to harp on playing our game,” South Webster senior Bella Claxon said. “Playing teams like this, you know they’re going to be very dangerous. Every team is dangerous in the postseason. So we really wanted to make sure we were really focused and trusting ourselves and what we know.”
From the get-go, that focus was evident.
Behind a slew of offensive production from Bella Claxon, Mia Crum, Skylar Zimmerman and Lauren Kaltenbach, among others, the Jeeps had little issue grabbing early leads in all three sets.
“We watched film, so we went in knowing what shots we needed to hit and in practice, we would hit those shots,” SW’s Addi Claxon said. “We worked on our serve receiving to make sure our passing was there and just hit the shots we needed to.”
In Saturday’s first set, Bella Claxon gave her Jeeps a 9-7 lead with her first kill before that edge swelled to 15-11, thanks to a kill from Makayla Raynard. Brea Shupert later logged back-to-back kills, giving SW plenty of momentum before closing out the win.
Meigs (14-12) was forced to take a timeout early in the second, trailing 8-2. From that point on, it was off to the races for the Jeeps.
Shupert gave SW a 14-3 lead before a kill from Bella Claxon and an ace from Zimmerman pushed the advantage to 16-3. Crum later ended the set with a kill, sealing a dominant 25-15 win.
Nothing changed in the third as the Jeeps kept both feet firmly on the gas pedal.
Maryn Smith logged two straight kills for an 11-1 lead before Crum kept the 10-point lead intact, later in the action, at 17-7. That was more than enough of a cushion to seal a fifth straight district championship — the second consecutive in Division III.
Statistically, Bella Claxon paced the SW’s efforts with 10 kills, three aces, 15 digs and 24 assists. During a District Player of the Year campaign, the Jeeps’ leader will now head into the regional tournament with 278 kills, 84 aces, 23 blocks, 286 digs and 550 assists.
The 278-kill mark is career high for Claxon. Her being able to have two rotations on the outside, thanks to fellow setter Sidney Keslar, has only propelled the team’s offense to new heights.
“She’s been really important,” Addi Claxon said of Keslar. “At the beginning of the season, she didn’t get as much [playing] time. But I talked to her and was like, ‘This is possible. You can step in there.’ She really did step into her role and it’s really helped us have Bella on the outside for two rotations. She’s really stepped up and has done really well for us.”
Mia Crum added nine kills, Skylar Zimmerman had seven kills and six digs, Kaltenbach finished with four kills, three aces and 10 digs, and Addi Claxon posted 11 digs. Raynard, Shupert and Smith also helped out with four kills each.
South Webster will now shift its attention to a Division III regional semifinal at 6 p.m., Thursday at Logan High School. The Jeeps will meet with Adena, whom they’ve defeated once this year already — a five-set match way back on Aug. 26.
But that was then. This is now. Both teams have different looks and South Webster is well aware of it.
“We’re definitely going to watch film again because we know they’ve changed a lot of things. We’ve changed a lot of things,” Bella Claxon said. “We know it’s going to come down to who wants it more, really working hard on our defense and just trusting each other. [Trusting one another] is going to be huge because we know [Adena’s] a very good team. We’ll have to come out and play our best.”
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