WELLSTON — For the sixth time in the past eight years, the Eastern volleyball team is headed to the Sweet 16 at regionals after breezing past top-seeded Portsmouth Clay on Saturday with a 25-19, 25-17, 25-9 victory in a Division IV district championship match at Wellston High School.

The second-seeded Lady Eagles (22-3) brought home the program’s sixth district championship trophy with the straight-game decision, and all of those regional berths have come under current EHS volleyball coach Howie Caldwell. Caldwell, who did not coach this program a year ago, improved to 13-1 alltime at the district level in volleyball over his seven-year span at EHS.

Eastern trailed only three times during the entire contest, all of which were by one-point margins, with two of those being one-point deficits of 1-0 and 5-4 in Game 1.

After falling behind 5-4 in the opener, the Lady Eagles rallied to tie things up at five while retaining the serve. Senior Whitney Putman served up the next seven points to give the Green and White a 12-5 advantage.

The Lady Panthers (17-7) were down by as many 10 points (20-10) before rallying back to within four at 23-19, but Brenna Holter served out the final point of the opener to give Eastern an early one-game advantage.

Clay took an early 1-0 lead in Game 2, but the Lady Eagles countered with nine of the next 11 points to take a comfortable 9-3 edge. EHS went on to increase that lead out to 18-7 before taking its biggest advantage of Game 2 at 22-9.

The Lady Panthers closed that deficit to within 24-17, but Eastern broke serve for the eight-point win and a 2-0 match lead.

Eastern stormed out to an 8-2 edge in Game 3, then gradually extended that margin to 13-4 and 20-6 before taking its biggest lead of the match at 24-8. Both teams traded points while breaking serve, allowing these Lady Eagles to join the 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007 teams as district champions.

Putman led the Lady Eagles at the service line with 15 points, followed by Britney Morrison with 10 points and Holter with nine points. Sami Cummins and Beverly Maxson also added seven points and four points, respectively.

Jamie Swatzel led the net attack with 16 kills and three blocks, while Kasey Turley followed with 10 kills and a team-best seven blocks. Holter added five kills, Maxson contributed four kills and Morrison chipped in two kills.

Eastern, which has never won a single game at the regional level, will take on Tuscarawas Central Catholic (23-2) in the regional semifinal on Thursday at Lancaster High School. That contest will begin at 6 p.m., followed by the second regional semifinal matchup bewteen Mount Gilead Christian and Pike Eastern.

The two winners will play in the regional final on Saturday at 2 p.m.