South Webster VB takes Southeastern Ross to five in gritty match
· Yahoo Sports
SOUTH WEBSTER — Winning in sports gives a person or a team a high that is bested by few other things in life.
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However, there are many circumstances where a team can learn more about itself in its losses than it does in its wins.
And that journey, while difficult to understand or accept at times because of how painful the losses can be, is arguably what helps a team or program get to its highs.
The South Webster Jeeps' volleyball program may have dropped a hard-fought five-set match to Chillicothe Southeastern Monday evening (21-25, 25-21, 17-25, 25-12, 17-19), but the strides that the Lady Jeeps have made less than a month into the regular season has South Webster on the verge of breaking through.
That was evident in a dandy five-setter where Ava Claxon posted 20 kills, fellow frontline players Kennedy Hamilton, Chloe Milligan and Lucy Montgomery showed bright moments themselves, and South Webster's two-setter system featuring Emma Campbell and Mia Mantell, along with Lady Jeep libero Violet Edwards, also starred as South Webster (6-5) took Southeastern (8-2) to the brink in front of a strong crowd at South Webster High School.
While certainly difficult to take any loss, the performance was one that longtime South Webster volleyball coach Darcee Claxon reflected on with pride, particularly considering the significant strides that the Lady Jeeps have made in just two weeks time.
"We are starting to figure some things out," Claxon said. "We're getting more aggressive. We're playing a little more consistent. Those are obviously things that just come with time. We keep talking about offensive production and how we need more people to produce on offense, but overall, we played really well (on Monday). I wasn't sure what to expect. I know that Southeastern has a good record. They've been competing at a high level. They've been playing some really good competition and have been successful against that competition. My thoughts were, 'We better show up, or they're going to thump us.' We did. (Monday) was a much better performance."
South Webster showed its promise and talent throughout the opening two sets.
In the first set, the Lady Jeeps, down 10-8, went on a 8-1 run to take a 16-11 lead as standout sophomore Ava Claxon posted three blocks and two kills during the tilt to give South Webster the advantage in the middle of the set. Claxon chipped in another kill that gave the Lady Jeeps a 20-16 lead as the set headed into its waning moments, but Southeastern battled back with a 9-1 set-ending run to take the early match lead.
South Webster immediately answered the bell to begin action in the second set of competition by jumping ahead and taking a 7-1 lead, and even increasing upon that by taking a 13-6 advantage as Claxon again kept producing with three kills and two aces during the set's first 19 volleys.
But Southeastern fired back with a 11-1 run that appeared to give the Lady Panthers momentum with a 17-14 advantage in its pocket.
That's when Claxon came back to answer the bell.
The multi-sport athlete helped South Webster finish off the second set on a 11-4 run, posting three kills during the stretch as the Lady Jeeps rallied from the three-volley deficit to win by a 25-21 count and tie the score at a set apiece.
It was part of a fantastic match outing for Claxon, who added in six kills in the fourth set and five more in the third frame en route to her 20-kill outing.
"Ava's been playing well," Claxon said. "She's carrying a lot of our offense at this point. I thought they were targeting her on serve receive to try to take her out of her game, but I thought that she handled that well too, and she's been producing on the defensive front. She's just giving us really solid all around performances. I was really proud of her for that."
While Southeastern broke the tie by taking the third set, 25-17, the fourth set saw South Webster completely dominate matters.
In addition to Claxon's six kills, Hamilton, Milligan and Montgomery all showcased bright spots around Claxon, with Hamilton posting two kills, two aces and a block, Montgomery collecting three kills and an ace and Milligan adding in a long presence in the middle while scoring a kill at set point in the second set to add offense around Claxon.
The trio's efforts helped South Webster break open a 7-6 game in the fourth set, as South Webster closed the set on an 18-6 run to win the fourth set in convincing fashion and force the winner-take-all fifth frame.
"We talked about that in several huddles," Claxon said of the production from Hamilton, Milligan and Montgomery. "I said, 'Listen, you guys have to produce offensively.' They did. All three of them came up with big kills for us several times. I just want to see more consistency in that. Once you do that, it does take the pressure off of Ava, but it also opens up things across the net. Now, that blocker has to be true to you. They're doing good things, they're putting in the work, and I'm glad we saw some of that pay off (on Monday evening)."
Along with their efforts, the two-setting system of Campbell and Mantell — who easily had well over 35 assists between them for the match — continued to thrive. The duo have two and three more seasons to play after the 2026 campaign, respectively, in a South Webster uniform.
"They work a lot and they have been working hard since June, just putting time in and touching balls," Claxon said of Campbell and Mantell. "I don't think people understand how difficult it is to set. It's not just getting to the ball. It's footwork patterns. It's your hand positioning. It's where you contact the ball. They work on all those things every single practice, and I expect a lot from them. I expect my setters to be floor generals. If something goes wrong, I'm looking at them. I'm looking at my libero and I'm looking at my setters. They just continue to improve, and I think they'll just continue to get better. You have a freshman (Mantell) and a sophomore (Campbell) playing at the varsity level. This time and this experience is only going to help them get better."
South Webster's fifth set hopes looked dim to start as Southeastern came out on a mission to end the final canto quickly, blitzing the Lady Jeeps with a 7-0 run to begin matters.
But the youthful bunch showed no quit.
Getting two crucial aces from Montgomery, South Webster then got two kills each from Milligan and Claxon and a kill from Hamilton to pull all the way within 12-11 as the Lady Jeeps forced Southeastern to burn a timeout.
The hustle play of Campbell, Edwards and Mantell played a part in that, along with Claxon and Montgomery among others.
"I thought we picked up some balls there defensively at the end and made some scramble plays. Violet picked up some. Mia picked up some. Emma did. There was good effort out on the floor, and those are all good things. Early on in the match, I thought that we were freezing and not reacting, and so when we started moving, that was really good stuff to see the girls fix that. You can't beat a team if you can't keep the ball off the floor. That's our bread and butter — keeping balls off the floor and serving aggressively. We're trying to find who we are, what our strengths are, and how do we maximize those."
Down 13-11 after trading points with the Lady Panthers, the Lady Jeeps furiously rallied, and after getting an ace from Campbell, had the affair at match point at 14-13, then again at 16-15 after breaking Southeastern's 2-0 rally to put the Lady Panthers at match point with a 2-0 swing of its own to get it back to match point on South Webster's end.
"The girls showed great resiliency," Claxon said. "They battled back. I'm really proud of them for that."
But standout junior hitter Kylee Dunn, who came into Monday's match with 127 kills and a .297 attack percentage on the season in Southeastern's first nine matches, was determined to help the Lady Panthers come out with a road win. Dunn, who posted 15 kills for the match, helped Southeastern collect four out of the last six volleys in the match to take the win.
"At the end, we got a little too conservative," Claxon said. "We didn't put balls away, and they were still swinging. We talked a lot about that, talking about, 'You can't be conservative and win a game. You've got to be aggressive.' But also, that youth comes through and you don't want to be the reason that there's a mistake made, and while I don't know their thought process, I would say that several of them are thinking, 'Just keep it in. Don't be the reason that there's an error.' With more time and experience, obviously you get more confident and that's not necessarily your line of thinking."
South Webster played Minford to open up SOC III action on Tuesday evening at home and will look to keep its positive play going. The Lady Jeeps had won five matches in a row prior to Monday's five-set defeat.
"We started with kind of a gauntlet," Claxon said. "Adena, Unioto, and I thought Jackson played very well against us, too. I don't know if we played our best in that match. You can look at it and say, 'Well, I wish we had played them later in the season, but the flip side of that is that those teams exposed a lot of things that we needed to work on. When people expose it, you can't hide from it. It's just glaring and it's there. As a coach, I can say, 'Hey, you've got to work on this or you need to work on this.' But when the other team shows you, you can't really deny it. The girls are working on things and really putting in the work. They're doing what we're asking them to do. They're showing up, day-in and day-out, and I have to remind myself that they're young and they're still learning. There has to be a little bit of grace for that."