SOUTH WEBSTER — Throughout the 2025-26 season, the SOC III girls basketball race has been highly entertaining, with none of the six teams presently in the SOC III giving an inch to the other in what has certainly been one of the more competitive and furious finishes to a conference title hunt in recent memory.
So it was only fitting that the final SOC III game of the 2025-26 season wouldn’t disappoint, either.
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The Wheelersburg Pirates’ girls basketball program played a championship level through much of the opening half, using an excellent low-post effort by Peyton May and sharpshooting from the outside to take a 24-9 opening half lead.
South Webster, however, pinned its ears back in the second half, and made a significant run that saw the Lady Jeeps furiously rally en route to cutting the Wheelersburg lead all the way down to a one-point margin.
In the end, however, Dusty Spradlin’s group’s patience on the offensive end and its poise late ultimately earned Wheelersburg the outright SOC III crown as the Lady Pirates scored a 44-40 road win over a gritty effort by Ryan Dutiel’s Lady Jeeps in yet another SOC III classic on Friday evening at South Webster High School in South Webster.
For two of Wheelersburg’s key upperclassmen in Lady Pirate seniors Peyton May and Jaylinn Prather, the victory, and the SOC III crown, came as a result of doing something that is easy to say, but much harder to execute on.
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Trusting one another.
“At the beginning of the season, we didn’t really share the ball a lot, and we knew that we had to work on that, because we weren’t going to make shots or generally be as good of a team as we could be if we didn’t start sharing the ball,” May said. “We have to have faith in each other, and us sharing the ball during the game kept South Webster from keying on one person.”
“Learning to trust each other has definitely helped us move the ball around the floor,” Prather said. “We’ve gotten better as a team because of that.”
Despite the setback, it was difficult for South Webster head coach Ryan Dutiel to be disappointed in anything, especially considering how the Lady Jeeps have played throughout the 2025-26 season. After all, South Webster’s already improved its win total by 10 from the year prior with the 2026 OHSAA Division VI State Tournament still to be played, all while coming out of a league that had terrific parody from beginning to end.
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“Every game in the SOC III was an all-out war this season as it always has been,” Dutiel said. “We just know each other so well. I feel like we’re all good quality teams, and every coach is an excellent coach. As far as quality, this is probably the highest quality that our league’s ever been from top to bottom. There wasn’t an easy game.”
Defensively, both teams made nothing easy in the opening quarter, in particular South Webster senior Addi Claxon, who enjoyed a terrific Senior Night tribute that was as touching as one could hope for.
The NCAA Division II Gannon (Pa.) volleyball signee responded with a strong opening quarter on the defensive end, grabbing four rebounds and a steal to boot. Claxon’s trey with less than a minute left in the opening quarter gave the Lady Jeeps a 5-4 lead at the end of the first frame.
South Webster, behind Claxon’s work on the glass, enjoyed a plus-eight rebounding advantage in the first quarter as Lady Jeep freshmen Natalee Eskridge and Violet Edwards also recorded two rips apiece in the frame, helping Dutiel’s squad claim the 5-4 lead at the opening quarter horn.
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But Wheelersburg flipped the script in the second quarter behind their two trusted seniors.
May, who enjoyed a monstrous performance with a double-double — 16 rebounds and 10 points — scored five straight points, including an and-one that gave Wheelersburg an 11-5 lead.
Then Prather, who hit a pair of free throws earlier in the second quarter to give the Lady Pirates a 6-5 lead on its opening possession of the second frame, added in a three-point field goal later on.
Prather, along with Lainey Skeenes, Myles Bailey and Callie DeHart, ultimately combined for four treys in the second quarter as Wheelersburg worked around May’s six points down low with the quartet’s 12 points up top off of those make three-point attempts.
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Prather’s early free throw makes accounted for the remaining damage in a critical 20-4 second frame, one where the Lady Pirates ultimately forced, and took advantage of, Addi Claxon receiving three fouls early in the second quarter en route to grabbing a 24-9 halftime advantage.
“At the beginning of the game, we weren’t rebounding the ball really well, and (Dusty) Spradlin kept saying, ‘You’re going to have to rebound the ball. If you don’t, bad things are going to happen if we don’t rebound,'” May said. “We started to rebound the ball better, and good things started to happen as a result of that. We started scoring and just got the ball moving more.”
Down as much as 17 (28-11) and then 16 (33-17) late in the third quarter, South Webster responded.
Fueled by an and-one conversion from Addi Claxon, a two-point basket by Emma Campbell and a three from Ava Claxon, South Webster pulled within 33-23 on the opening possession of the fourth quarter.
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The Lady Jeeps then got another big bucket from Campbell later in the quarter, who knocked down a transition three-pointer from the left corner off of an Addi Claxon pass to cut the Wheelersburg lead down to single digits for good at a 40-32 count.
“Emma is an excellent player,” Dutiel said. “She’s an excellent shooter. She’s just developing that confidence, and when they started coming off to double on Ava, that put the ball in Emma’s hands, and she certainly stepped up in a big way. She’s a player. I’m so excited to see how she blossoms and grows from this.”
That three, as part of Campbell scoring all 11 of her points in the second half, gave the South Webster section serious life, and the Lady Jeeps responded with a furious 11-1 rally, capped off by a near four-point play from Ava Claxon as the freshman, who was fouled while shooting a three-point field goal, had her shot just miss off of the front side of the rim.
“We talked at halftime and talked about how we played at Wheelersburg, where we came out over there, outscored them in the second half, and came out and worked a huge deficit down to eight or nine before the game was finally decided,” Dutiel said. “The girls believed in themselves and said, ‘We’re going to do it again.’ They did exactly what they set their minds to and played extremely hard. It was basically gutcheck time and they all responded in a big way.”
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The youngest Claxon drained all three of her free throws, pulling South Webster within 41-40 of Wheelersburg with 11.8 seconds to play.
But Prather, who scored 11 points in the contest, again hit two big free throws, and Ava Artrip, who joined May and Prather in double-figures with 10 tallies of her own, hit the front end of a free throw following a key Wheelersburg stop defensively to put the game, and the SOC III outright crown, on ice.
“Calming down and keeping our composure was huge,” Prather said. “It was a big crowd for us. We’re not used to playing with this many people here, so being able to keep our composure was big.”
With the win, Wheelersburg now sits 13-8 overall and finished its SOC III slate 7-3, while South Webster still sits 12-9 as a group with a 4-6 SOC III record.
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Wheelersburg hosts River Valley in a Division V Sectional Championship contest Wednesday evening at Wheelersburg High School, while South Webster, barring a late regular season addition to its schedule, will be back in action on Monday, Feb. 23 in the Division VI District Semifinals, where the Lady Jeeps will play the winner of either Valley or Eastern Pike at Chillicothe Southeastern High School in Londonderry.
“It feels great,” Prather said of the SOC III Championship. “I feel like as a team, we’ve all become so close and worked so hard, so to know that our hard work is paying off means so much to us.”
“We’re hoping to get a game Wednesday or Thursday so we don’t lose the edge,” Dutiel said. “Sometimes, with a long layoff, you can lose your edge. We’re hoping that we can schedule something, and then go through a normal routine of days between games. Whether it’s Valley or Eastern Pike, we’re looking forward to the opportunity and the challenge that lies ahead.”
