Carly Wood and the Raiders have won eight straight games heading into this week's home games.
SOU Women Look to Lock Up Playoff Berth
ASHLAND, ORE. - Winners of eight straight, the Southern Oregon women’s basketball team looks to wrap up a Cascade Conference playoff berth this weekend as they open up a four-game homestand.
The Raiders (19-4, 11-3) host Cascade College (10-11, 3-11) Friday night and Warner Pacific (11-12, 7-7) Saturday night.
SOU will wrap up their third straight postseason appearance with a victory. It would also mark a 20-win season for the eighth time in school history.
The Raiders moved up to No. 23 in this week’s NAIA Top 25 poll, following impressive road victories over then No. 8 College of Idaho and Eastern Oregon.
Those victories were highlighted by the play of senior Rhiannon Dickison and juniors Jacki Speer and Whitney Scott.
The “Big Three” were all in double-digit scoring for both victories. Dickison averaged 22 points over the weekend and hit on 46 percent of her 3-point attempts. Speer, the Cascade Conference Player of the Week, averaged 16.5 points and 14.5 rebounds. Scott averaged 15.5 points and made 45.5 percent of her 3-pointers.
“The inside-out game is what we’ve been stressing all year,” SOU head coach Lynn Kennedy said. “If we are able score inside, it opens up the outside shots and we’ve been able to knock those down.”
Cascade comes in playing their best basketball of the year. The Thunderbirds dropped 11 straight at one point, but have won back-to-back games heading into Friday’s matchup.
Junior guard Kristina Schumacher leads the Cascade Conference and ranks sixth in the Nation in scoring at 21.1 points per-game.
Warner Pacific currently sits in fifth place in the Conference standings and is .500 in Conference play this year.
Kelsey Mattsen leads the Knights in scoring at 14.3 points per game.
After this weekend’s games, the Raiders host arch-rival Oregon Tech next Tuesday and Northwest Christian next Friday.