Story byThe Portsmouth Daily Times, OhioKevin Colley, The Portsmouth Daily Times, OhioSat, January 17, 2026 at 2:22 AM UTC·7 min readWAVERLY — All season long, the South Webster Jeeps’ girls basketball program has been building toward claiming a signature win that could arguably serve as a breakthrough victory for the group. South Webster got that signature victory in a SOC III contest Thursday evening against the Waverly Tigers’ girls basketball program. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe Lady Jeeps overcame a 14-8 first quarter deficit, and, after knocking on the door of fully taking control of the contest after trailing just 31-30 at the half and 42-40 after the third period, wore Waverly down in the fourth quarter as South Webster outscored the Lady Tigers 13-4 in the final eight-minute stanza to claim a 53-46 win for its second straight win. In doing so, the Lady Jeeps not only knocked off what was the SOC III co-leader in Waverly, but has South Webster head coach Ryan Dutiel’s group back on the right side of .500 and, at 8-7 overall and 3-4 in the SOC III, even kept its chances at potentially sharing the conference title with a second half spurt alive in what is simply the latest story in what can be simply described as how the conference race has turned.“My freshmen aren’t playing as much like freshmen anymore,” Dutiel said. “They have their moments and that’s to be expected — they’re still learning, growing and maturing. However, they are very quick studies, and they’ve learned from their mistakes.
