SOUTH WEBSTER — History, in the short term, repeated itself on Monday night in South Webster.

For the second time in a week’s span, the South Webster Lady Jeeps volleyball team got a five-set win over a county foe — this time doing so in a 3-2 victory (25-10, 25-20, 23-25, 24-26, 15-8) over visiting Notre Dame.

The Lady Jeeps jumped out to a 2-0 lead on the Lady Titans in this non-league contest — winning the first two sets by 25-10 and 25-20 scores.

“We were serving aggressively, doing a great job with serve-receive and keeping them out of system so that they really couldn’t get anything offensively. They out-match us size-wise, we knew in order to be successful we’d have to keep them out of system,” SW coach Darcee Claxon said, of her team’s early match success. “We were really successful doing that early on, and we were doing a great job with our passing.”

Notre Dame did the farthest thing from lay down, despite facing a 2-0 deficit.

The Lady Titans would go on to win extremely close sets in the third (25-23) and fourth (26-24) sets to force a winner-take-all fifth set.

“The fight wasn’t something I had really seen all year. We came out and proved it to ourselves, that we can compete with any team of any caliber,” ND coach Katie Dettwiller said, after the game. “Proud of the girls for keeping with it when things weren’t going our way, to finding confidence in the little things we do and play Notre Dame volleyball.”

With a first to 15 set underway, it was South Webster who would prevail (15-8) in their fourth five-set match this fall.

Leading the Lady Jeeps on offense was junior Skylar Zimmerman who finished with a team-high 13 kills, followed by sophomore Makayla Raynard who had 11 kills.

SW as a team had 13 ace serves — three each by freshman libero Addison Claxon, junior Bella Claxon, and Zimmerman.

At the net, sophomore Mia Crum finished with a team-high five blocks, while senior Natalie Adkins blocking four kills.

Zimmerman and Addison Claxon each had 25 digs on the defensive side, with sophomore Lauren Kaltenbach totaling 23 digs.

Bella Claxon led the way with 39 assists as the team’s setter.

“Having that competitive spirit, that grit. We don’t have the size we used to have, so we have to figure out how to win points and put the ball away,” Coach Claxon said, of her team winning another fifth-set affair. “We have to be pretty crafty, serve aggressively. We have to control the things that are in our control if we want to be successful.”

Notre Dame (11-4) will host Symmes Valley on Tuesday in an SOC I contest.

“Grateful for this opportunity to come and play this team, they’re a wonderful program and Darcee does a great job — they’re going to make a deep run again this year,” Dettwiller said. “We learned what we can do, things we need to get better at if we want to make a deep tournament run and finish our regular season on a high note.”

South Webster (14-2) will travel to Eastern on Tuesday looking to build on their 13-game winning streak.

“You want to see your team, at this point, continue to find success and win these five set matches and settle in. I have to remind myself that we’re young. The fact that we’re able to settle in is crucial because we are able to compete late in games.

Reach Jacob Smith at (740) 370-0713 ext. 1930, by email at [email protected], or on Twitter @JacobSmithPDT © 2022 Portsmouth Daily Times, all rights reserved