GRANVILLE — Big Walnut volleyball fans have gotten used to visiting new towns in early November. The Golden Eagles have made getting to the regional tournament a habit for quite a while.

Thursday night, they nearly pulled out one of their biggest matches of the year.

Big Walnut fell behind two games to none to Urichsville Claymont, battled back to tie the match at two games apiece, but fell in game five as the Mustangs prevailed 25-21, 25-16, 27-29, 22-25, 15-10 in the Division II regional semifinal at Granville High School.

“It’s tough to lose after coming back like they did, but I‘m proud of the girls,” Big Walnut coach Ron Lehman said. “They battled back and won those two games, but they just couldn’t get it back after getting down in that fifth game.”

Big Walnut (22-4) had to play without sophomore middle hitter Emma Swysgood, out with the flu, but received strong play in the middle from juniors Kayleigh Sutherland and Eleni Lourgos.

“Emma is probably our No. 1 middle hitter, but I thought the rest of the kids did well,” Lehman said. “Eleni and Kayleigh had some really nice hits out there.”

Unfortunately, Claymont (24-1) countered with 5-6 junior hitter Makenzie Ripley, who had 17 kills in the first two games alone and finished the night with a game-high 34 kills, leading the Mustangs to their 2-0 advantage.

“We scouted her ahead of time and we knew she was a tremendous player,” Lehman said. “We set up our block to try to slow her down or stop her if we could. She had some success against us in those first two games, but we didn’t change things around. We started to block a couple of shots and save a couple more, and we did a better job later in the match.”

Big Walnut came out smoking in the third game, jumping out to a 13-5 lead, and held leads of 17-10 and 19-12 after that, but Claymont came back, eventually knotting the score at 22-all. The Golden Eagles had four chances to secure the third game, and finally did on a Ripley attack error.

Game four was much the same. Big Walnut eventually took a 9-3 lead, but the Mustangs closed within three, 19-16, then to two at 22-20, but a kill from junior Jazmine Reed helped them pull away, and sophomore Sammie Ebright’s blast ended game four.

“We told them they were going to have to go out fighting on every point,” Lehman said. “I was not going to be easy, but they worked hard at it and came back to win those next two games. I thought we picked up our level of play and worked harder, and that led to more success.”

Game five started with a block and kill from Sutherland, but Claymont eventually took a 5-2 lead early on, and led 9-6 at one point. Big Walnut got within a point afterward when Ebright and Reed had back-to-back kills, but Ripley’s 33rd kill of the night, gave the ball back to Claymont, and the Mustangs scored five of the next seven points to win.

“Our team has responded well all season when we’ve been down,” Lehman said. “They haven’t really lost focus. They’ve kept playing and kept fighting hard. Tonight, we just could finish them off.”

Ebright led the Big Walnut hitters, recording 16 kills on the evening. Lourgos finished with 12 kills, Reed added 10, and junior Summer Silvery had seven.

Sutherland added six kills for the Golden Eagles, while junior setter Tabatha Piper closed with four kills and a team-leading 41 set assists..

“Overall, we’re a very focused team,” Lehman said. “Most of the kids have been together since the seventh grade. They set high goals for themselves, and they’ve been successful at every level. They’ve worked hard at it since they started and they worked hard all year to get here.”

Claymont will face Hartley (20-6) in the regional championship Saturday. Hartley came back in the third game of their match to defeat Cambridge 3-0.

Big Walnut, meanwhile, has the entire roster back for another season next year, and things look good for a return trip to the regionals.

“We only lost four matches all year, and all were to state-ranked teams, and that’s really good,” Lehman said. “I thought we improved throughout the year, and I thought our middles improved a great deal from the beginning of the season. We’re excited about what we have coming back.”

sports@delgazette.com