WILLOW WOOD — Sometimes, the flow of the game works in your favor. Other times, it doesn’t.
The test of a good program, and one that can win games come tournament time, is one that can find a way to win in circumstances that aren’t ideal.
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The South Webster Jeeps’ offense struggled in spurts with a six-point first quarter, leading scorer and senior multi-sport standout Addison Claxon dealt with foul trouble and shots, in general, weren’t falling for the Lady Jeeps throughout much of the evening.
However, Ryan Dutiel’s group never wavered.
Defensively, South Webster held the Symmes Valley Vikings’ offense to just three points in the opening quarter and six in the fourth period, and used excellent defense around the rim as well as play from promising youngsters Ava Claxon, Violet Edwards and Emma Campbell to grab a key victory as the Lady Jeeps grinded out a win by a 34-26 margin Thursday evening in a nonconference contest that was held at Symmes Valley High School in Willow Wood.
“We’ve had better games,” Dutiel said. “We had to rely more on the defense tonight, because we were cold as ice. That’s an important lesson for our team to learn. We’ve had a couple of games where we’ve gotten out front and were able to dictate the tempo, and this was a good outing for us, even though it was kind of stressful at times. You need to be in those every once in a while. Being in that tight game, knowing who we can go to, and what things we can do in certain situations to create a shot, will be huge for us.”
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While only scoring six points, South Webster got two points each from Edwards, Addi Claxon and Natalee Eskridge off buckets in the opening quarter and held Symmes Valley to three points, which all came from leading scorer Lydia Saunders in route to its 6-3 advantage after the first stanza.
Foul trouble, which forced Addi Claxon, the team’s leading producer in points per game (17.3), rebounds per game (seven), and steals per game (six), as well as its co-leader in assists per contest (3.3), forced the Lady Jeeps to adjust — and as South Webster adjusted on both ends of the court without the services of Claxon, who fouled out of the game while mustering not much over a quarter of playing time in all, Symmes Valley utilized a 7-1 run to take its largest lead of the contest at 10-7 with just over three minutes to play in the second quarter.
Led by a talented and resilient group of freshmen, however, South Webster dug deep, countering with a huge three-point bucket by Emma Campbell with 2:47 remaining in the quarter to tie the game at 10 apiece.
Ava Claxon then drove the lane, knifed her way between two Symmes Valley defenders and dropped in a nifty finger roll with 1:59 to go to tie the score a second time at 12 apiece, and with 1:47 to play in the half, Eskridge muscled her way inside for a bucket, giving South Webster the lead back at 14-12 as the Lady Jeeps answered with a 7-2 run to take a two-point lead at the halftime break.
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The play of Edwards during the entire game, but especially in defensive transition guarding both Saunders as well as fellow Symmes Valley standout Brenna Tibbs, Dutiel said, was huge — particularly during this stretch.
“If I were to pick a player of the game, I would go with Violet,” Dutiel said of Edwards’ play. “Her defensive effort tonight was terrific. She was given the primary duties of guarding (Lydia) Saunders as well as (Brenna) Tibbs tonight, depending on what defense we were playing. She answered the call. She stepped up and did it. Violet did very well. I’m pleased with her effort tonight just on the defensive side alone.”
In the third quarter, the talented play of Ava Claxon shined as bright as the star one puts on top of a Christmas tree.
A 5-9 freshman with potential oozing from her frame, Claxon put on an offensive clinic over the first three-and-a-half-minutes of the third quarter, knocking down back-to-back treys and moving her way inside to score again while tallying each of South Webster’s first eight points in a 12-point third quarter for the Lady Jeeps, one where Claxon helped South Webster grab a 22-14 advantage before settling for a 26-20 third-quarter cushion at the horn.
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The beginning of the fourth quarter, however, may have been Claxon’s best play.
With just over a minute gone in the final frame, a drive inside was snuffed out and erased by Claxon, who denied a shot and then recovered her own blocked shot.
Keeping her eyes up all the way as the freshman moved off to the left side of the court, Claxon rifled a pass to her right to find Emma Campbell on the far side baseline, who then dumped a pass back off to Edwards in quick succession for a mid-range jumper.
The play proved to be huge in a 4-0 run to begin the fourth quarter that moved South Webster’s lead to its largest of the game, 30-20, just prior to the closing stages.
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“Ava is a really nice player,” Dutiel said. “She’s skilled with the ball and she sees the whole floor. She doesn’t look down. With some work, she’s going to be pretty special. We rely on her to take care of the basketball because that’s a specialty of hers. We look forward to seeing her continue to develop, and hopefully, she will continue to develop and create shots for herself, her teammates and things like that.”
While Symmes Valley was able to close the score down to a 30-26 count late in the going, the work of Edwards and Co. on the defensive end of the floor kept the Lady Vikings from making a significant run — as Saunders posted 18 points but fouled out of the game underneath the two-minute mark in the fourth quarter, while Tibbs was held to just one point.
No other Symmes Valley player had more than five tallies as the remaining roster outside of Saunders was held to three field goals, combined, over the entire 32-minute contest.
Now 4-1 on the year, the Lady Jeeps sit in an excellent position heading into its SOC III conference opener against the Minford Falcons’ girls basketball program (4-0). South Webster’s lone loss was an 11-point setback in its season opener at Chesapeake, who also sits 4-1 with its lone loss to Portsmouth (4-1).
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Not bad at all, to say the least — especially considering that the entire team had just one practice together prior to its first scrimmage of the year against Peebles back in November.
“We’re starting four freshmen and a senior,” Dutiel said. “We knew going in that they were going to have to be brought alone slowly. We knew that they were going to be thrown into the fire and have to answer the call, because our schedule’s pretty stout. I’m really pleased with their effort. They come to practice every day hungry, wanting to work, wanting to learn more, and tonight wasn’t our night from deep. Even some of our putbacks were kind of off. We’ve got to get rested up with a big one coming up against Minford on Monday. That opens up SOC III play for us, so that’s a big one — but being 4-1 and just 11 points away from being 5-0 at this point in the season, that was better than I expected with such a young team, and with the volleyball program being as deep as it was and practicing once as a group before our first scrimmage. That tells you how hard this group works. They’ve been in the gym and they’ve been working.”
