EOU's Jessica Lea earned a triple-double in the loss
No. 12 SOU Defeats Eastern Oregon 3-2 to Advance to CCC Volleyball Championship
BOX SCORE
CALDWELL, Idaho – Southern Oregon won its third consecutive five-set match Friday afternoon as the 12th-ranked Raiders defeated Eastern Oregon 3-2 (27-29, 25-19, 25-21, 18-25, 15-13) in a Cascade Collegiate Conference tournament semi-final contest at the J.A. Albertson Activities Center.
The Raiders, 20-4 overall, defeat EOU in five sets for the second consecutive match after the teams closed out the regular season in Ashland last Saturday. Eastern Oregon falls to 17-11 overall this season.
Southern Oregon will face the winner of tonight’s match between regular-season champion No. 8 College of Idaho and fourth-seeded Northwest in the CCC championship match Saturday at 3 p.m. (M.S.T.). The winner of that match will earn the conference’s automatic bid to the NAIA Tournament.
Eastern Oregon hit .327 in the opening set to take a 29-27 victory. The Mountaineers took an early five-point lead at 9-4 on a pair of kills by Katie Keeney, but the Raiders battled back to tie it up at 14-14 on a kill by Liz Madden. Southern Oregon continued its run to take a 19-16 lead, but a few points later EOU used a 5-0 run to regain a two-point advantage at 22-20.
The Mountaineers earned a match-point advantage on Alisha Crane’s kill to go up 24-22, but SOU took the next two points to tie it up. Eastern Oregon again earned match point on a kill by Rebecca Haight before a pair of SOU points gave the Raiders the chance to earn the set victory. Another Crane kill tied it up at 26-26, and after a kill by Natalie Scheller made it 27-26, EOU fought off set point with a kill by Katie Showers and closed out the opener with back-to-back kills by Jessica Lea.
In the second set, SOU took an early four-point lead at 7-3 before EOU worked its way back to within one at 12-11. The Raiders responded with a 6-2 run to earn a five-point advantage at 18-13. After the Mountaineers pulled within three on kills by Showers and Lea, the Raiders picked up three-straight points and clinched the 25-19 set win on a kill by Megan Bartling.
Eastern Oregon took a four-point lead at 11-7 in the third set before SOU tied it up at 13-13 on a pair of EOU attack errors. The Raiders earned their first lead of the set when a Holgen kill made it 17-16, and the Raiders eventually used a four-point streak to take a 22-18 lead. The teams exchanged points through the end of the set, with Scheller closing it out with a kill to make it 25-21.
Southern Oregon scored five of the first seven points in the fourth set before Eastern Oregon put together an eight-point streak to take an 11-7 lead. The Raiders would never get back in it, as the Mountaineers used another four-point streak to take a 21-14 lead and pulled away to the 25-18 set victory to force a fifth set.
Neither team led by more than two points throughout the final set. Southern Oregon took an early 5-3 lead, but EOU used kills by Showers and Lea and back-to-back service aces to turn the two-point deficit into a 7-5 advantage. Following an SOU timeout, the Raiders scored three of the next four points to tie it up at 8-8.
With SOU leading 11-10, Eastern scored three points in a row to take a 13-11 lead. The Raiders battled back with four consecutive points on a kill by Scheller, two EOU attack errors and a match-clinching kill by Holgen to earn the set-and-match victory, 15-13.
Four Raiders finished with double-digit kills, led by Holgen’s 21. Scheller added 17, with Haley Fikso tallying 12 and Bartling posting 10. Caryn Westrick led SOU with 38 assists with Angela Spieker contributed 28, and Becky Johnstone finished with 23 digs to lead a group of four Raiders with double-figures in the dig column.
Lea finished with a match-high 23 kills on a .457 attack percentage, with 31 assists and 15 digs to earn the triple-double. Haight finished with 14 kills and Showers added 10. Emily Sampson led the Mountaineers with 37 assists and added 16 digs, while Kaitlyn Duncan posted a match-high 32 digs.