Derrick Webb, Managing Editor
Southern Ohio Sports Authority is presented by OhioHealth.
SOUTH WEBSTER — Nothing has come easy in this year’s parity-filled SOC III title race.
That’s an understatement at best.
But throughout a season that’s been full of ups and downs, Wheelersburg’s group has only grown closer. The Pirates have indeed taken their lumps, but they’ve never lost sight of their goals.
On Friday, they were able to cross one of those goals off the list. With a hard-fought 44-40 win at South Webster, Wheelersburg claimed the outright SOC III championship.
“This feels great. I feel like we’ve all, as a team, grown so close and worked so hard,” senior Jaylinn Prather said. “Just to know that our hard work is paying off means so much to us.”
CREDIT: Derrick Webb/SOSA
Friday’s win was a tale of two halves.
Through the first two quarters of play, Wheelersburg looked dominant, taking a 15-point lead into the break. But the Jeeps put forth a valiant effort in the third and fourth quarters, eventually cutting that double-digit deficit to a single point.
But with the game on the line, Prather and sophomore Ava Artrip knocked down critical free throw attempts while senior Peyton May crashed the boards hard, ultimately keeping South Webster at bay.
“At the beginning of the game, we weren’t rebounding well and [Wheelersburg coach Dusty Spradlin] kept telling us that we needed to rebound the ball,” May said. “I just think when we started to rebound the ball better, [good] things started happening and we started scoring.”
Offense was hard to come by in the first quarter.
Artrip gave the Pirates a 2-0 lead with a score before Emma Campbell tied the game with 5:03 left in the frame. Wheelersburg went back ahead at 4-2 when Atrip scored with less than two minutes to play, just before SW’s Addi Claxon dialed long distance to give the Jeeps their first lead at 5-4 going into the second.
The next eight minutes, however, belonged solely to ‘Burg.
The Pirates (13-8, 7-3 SOC III) took a 6-5 lead with two free throws from Prather before back-to-back scores from May pushed the advantage to 11-5. When Lainey Skeens hit a 3 with 4:19 left, it capped a 10-0 run to make it 14-5.
And they weren’t finished, either.
SW’s Natalee Eskridge stopped the bleeding with a score, but Prather answered with a triple on the other end, making it 17-7. Myles Bailey later followed suit and Callie DeHart also nailed a triple just before the buzzer, pushing the lead to 24-9 at halftime.
“We just trusted each other more,” senior Peyton May said. “At the beginning of the game, if we’d missed a shot, we’d get down on ourselves. So we just trusted each other more to make shots.”
At that point, it looked as if Wheelersburg was going to run away with a victory. The Jeeps, however, had other plans.
While not much changed in the third quarter, which ended with Wheelersburg leading 33-20, the tides indeed switched course in the fourth.
After the Pirates went ahead 36-20, SW’s Ava Claxon splashed in a trey before Campbell scored for a 36-26 count. Addi Claxon then got a putback to fall at the 5:36 mark, trimming the deficit to nine points.
Later, with 2:38 to play, Campbell added a trey of her own for a 40-32 score. She then hit two free throws with 1:28 remaining before Ava Claxon knocked down three freebies with 11.8 seconds left, bringing the Jeeps to within a single point at 41-40.
Prather was able to knock down one of two free throw tries on the other end, giving the Jeeps a chance to tie, or even win, the game with less than 10 seconds to play. But Wheelersburg’s defense forced a turnover and Artrip knocked down both tries from the charity stripe to seal the win.
May paced Wheelersburg’s efforts with 12 points and 13 rebounds while Artrip added 10 points and three assists. Prather also had 10 points and Myles Bailey finished with six points.
For South Webster (12-9, 4-6 SOC III), Campbell totaled a game-high 14 points while Addi Claxon added 11 points and nine rebounds. Ava Claxon chipped in with six points and seven rebounds, and Eskridge posted five points and eight boards.
Wheelersburg’s regular season comes to an end and the Pirates will now look towards a first round tournament matchup at 7 p.m., Feb. 18 against River Valley. Meanwhile, the Jeeps will also be back in action in postseason play, awaiting the winner of Valley and Eastern Pike on Feb. 23.
Put simply, it’s do or die time.
“Us learning to trust each other has definitely helped us move the ball around the court better,” Prather said. “I think we can make it [past the district tournament]. We know that we have to go out and play like it’s our last game because it very well could be. As seniors, it’s just really important to grind. It’s crunch time.”
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