SOUTH WEBSTER — With five of the six teams in the SOC III holding winning records and no team in the SOC III holding a record worse than 5-6 overall, one thing is certainly clear.
The SOC III is a gauntlet.
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That’s evident in the fact that only two contests across the entire league this year have been decided by more than 11 points, and on Wednesday evening, another good SOC III contest broke out between the South Webster Jeeps’ and Minford Falcons’ girls basketball programs.
Ultimately, at the end of the contest, Minford’s defense was able to win out over South Webster’s as both teams dueled in a contest where both teams combined to lead by double-digits only once in yet another competitive bout at South Webster High School.
For Minford head coach Chuck Miller, any win is a good win, and that’s especially the case in the stout conference that is the SOC III.
“Very physical game,” Miller said. “We made a switch to the zone there at the end of the third quarter and played into the fourth with it, and that slowed South Webster down some as they had the momentum at that point. We found a way to win and that was big for us.”
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As for Ryan Dutiel, the game represented growing pains that he knew that his young squad would have, but that he also knows that South Webster will grow from in the future.
“I told the girls in the locker room, ‘I dread seeing our shooting percentage tonight,’” Dutiel said. “In the first half, I didn’t feel like we were mentally ready to go. In the second half, we played better in the third and got back in it. We even cut it to three points late in the third and in the fourth. Our shots in the second half weren’t bad shots, but they just were not falling, and you usually don’t have that at home, but that’s one of those things where you’re going through the ups and downs of having a younger team, as well as having the quick turnaround from playing Monday to playing tonight. That’s just one of those things that we’re going to have to fight through.”
Down by a 5-2 margin in the opening quarter of play, Minford’s defensive work helped the Lady Falcons go on a 14-2 run between the first and second quarters as Minford took a 12-7 lead after the first quarter of play and led by a 16-7 margin with 4:50 to play in the second quarter of competition.
Kerigan Davis, who has been a key piece to the Lady Falcons’ success throughout the year, scored six of those points en route to notching eight tallies in the opening half.
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The skilled sophomore finished with a game-high 17 points as the go-to figure in Minford’s offense and also played effective defense on the highly skilled Ava Claxon, holding the freshman to nine points and leading the Lady Falcons defensively as Minford held South Webster to two second quarter field goals.
“We get that from Kerigan every game,” Miller said. “She’s one of the better players in the league, no doubt. The thing that she has to do every night as well is guard the other team’s best player on the defensive end of the floor, and I think that she did a really, really, really good job on (Ava) Claxon, who is going to be and already is a really nice player. We ask a lot out of her, but she’s a warrior, and she steps up.”
Violet Edwards, who led South Webster in scoring with an 11-point effort in the Lady Jeeps’ 40-34 victory over Valley, helped pull the Lady Jeeps within five as her aggressiveness on the low block resulted in four straight points that pulled South Webster to within 16-11 midway through the opening half.
“Violet has been coming along the last two or three games,” Dutiel said. “She’s starting to fulfill her role of what we need her to do. She is really fast. Her straight line speed is tops on the team. What we need her to do is play really competitive defense, stretch the floor a little bit, and hit the open shots, which she’s been doing here lately. We’re really pleased with her.”
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However, Minford answered as Marley Rhodes scored directly off of an inbounds pass. The bucket, which was the Lady Falcons’ third such conversion directly off of an inbound play, began a 6-2 spurt that gave Minford a 23-13 advantage at the half.
“I always tell the girls that if you can get one bucket off of an out of bounds play, that’s big, because those are points that pay off later down the line,” Miller said. “Getting three in the first half — we’ll certainly take them.”
In the third quarter, however, South Webster answered back.
Allowing just two field goals in the quarter behind the vocal leadership of Addi Claxon, the rebounding of Edwards, Natalee Eskridge and Emma Campbell and the fluid playmaking of Ava Claxon, the Lady Jeeps doubled up the Lady Falcons, 12-6, in the third quarter.
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Addi Claxon, who was encouraging her teammates to fight off Minford’s screens during the third quarter, matched her defensive intensity with six third-quarter points offensively, drawing South Webster from the 22-13 halftime deficit to within three, 28-25, at the end of the third quarter of play.
“Addi is a really good player,” Dutiel said. “She’s not just a one dimensional player. She’s got the mental part figured out. She’s physically gifted. She is the team cheerleader. She is the team motivator. She just does it all. She doesn’t just talk the talk — she walks the walk as well. She gets after whoever we’re playing defensively and doesn’t back down one bit, no matter who it is. She gives 110 every time out. There’s never an exception where she’s not mentally locked in and ready to go.”
However, Minford again stepped up defensively in the fourth quarter.
Despite three-point field goals from Campbell and Ava Claxon in the final frame, the Lady Falcons limited the Lady Jeeps to those two field goals — and received big plays from Davis as well as Minford’s Makenna Enz down the stretch. Davis and Enz ultimately combined for 16 of Minford’s last 18 points, with Enz hitting a late third-quarter three-pointer that stretched the Lady Falcons’ lead back to six and stealing a ball for a layup that sealed the contest’s seven-point margin with under 40 seconds remaining in the game.
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“I’m an old point guard,” Miller said. “I typically am harder on my point guards. She’s a warrior. Makenna plays as hard on both ends of the floor as any girl that I’ve coached. She’s a warrior. That’s all I can say about her. We couldn’t win without here.”
With the win, Minford improved to 7-4 overall and now sits 1-3 in the SOC III while South Webster is now 6-5 and 1-3 in the SOC III as well with the loss. The two programs have no time to rest as the Lady Falcons and Lady Jeeps gear up for two big road contests Thursday evening with Minford heading to Valley and South Webster making the trip to Wheelersburg in another pair of important SOC III contests.
“Ryan and I were talking about this before the game started,” Miller said. “There’s no rest in the SOC III. There’s no game where you can say, ‘I’m going to catch my breath.’ It is a war every single night. I’m biased, but I also know that I’m right here — the SOC III right now, in girls basketball, is the best league, top to bottom as far as depth, around here. You just look. Anybody can beat anybody on any given night. You could be at the top of the league, and the team that’s in sixth can beat you. But you love that. Those are wars. That’s what you want.”
“We know that every night, we could step up and play somebody that on any given night, can beat anybody else in the league,” Dutiel said. “It’s that competitive. I know that is tough right now, but it’s only going to prepare us even better for the tournament run. Not many teams at the Division VI or Division VII level are going to be competitive night in and night out until you at least get into district finals. The SOC III is probably the deepest that I’ve ever seen it.”
