SOU Defeats Eastern Oregon 3-2 in Regular Season Finale
BOX SCORE
ASHLAND – Fourteenth-ranked Southern Oregon pulled out its second consecutive five-set victory Saturday night as the Raiders defeated Eastern Oregon 3-2 (26-24, 25-27, 25-22, 23-25, 15-11) to clinch second-place in the Cascade Collegiate Conference standings.
With the win, the Raiders close out the regular season with a 19-4 record, 16-2 in conference play. Eastern Oregon falls to 17-10 overall and 15-3 in the CCC. The two teams will face off again in a CCC Tournament semi-final match Friday night at 4 p.m. (M.S.T.) at College of Idaho.
The first set was a back-and-forth affair that featured 16 tie scores and extra points. Eastern Oregon led 23-21, but Southern Oregon tied it up on back-to-back kills by Megan Bartling following an SOU timeout. Following an attack error to give Eastern the 24-23 set-point advantage, the Raiders scored three straight points and clinched the 26-24 win on a kill by Sarah Holgen.
The second set featured a tremendous SOU comeback late after the Mountaineers scored four straight points to reach set point at 24-18. Southern Oregon used a kill by Natalie Scheller and five consecutive EOU errors to fight off set point and tie the game at 24-24.
Eastern Oregon again picked up a set-point advantage on Jessica Lea’s kill to go up 25-24, but a Bartling kill tied it up at 25-25. Following a timeout, the Mountaineers finally put the set away on kills by Rebecca Haight and Lea to tie the match at 1-1.
Southern Oregon came out strong in the third set, using a 6-0 run to turn a 5-5 tie into an 11-5 advantage. Eastern Oregon called timeout and scored 6-3 run to pull within three at 13-10, and the Mountaineers eventually tied it at 19-19 on a block by Alisha Crane and Taylor Stewart.
With the set tied at 21-21, the Raiders scored three straight points on a Liz Madden kill and two EOU attack errors to reach set point. After a Katie Showers kill made it 24-22, SOU closed out the set on a kill by Natalier Scheller.
Eastern Oregon took a quick 5-2 lead in the fourth set, but the Raiders came back to tie it at 6-6 and the set would feature 13 tie scores. The teams exchanged points for almost the entire second half of the set, with EOU briefly taking a two-point lead at 21-19 before kills by Bartling and Haley Fikso tied it up. The Mountaineers forced a fifth set with back-to-back points on a Haight kill and a Crane block.
Continuing the trend of the night, Southern Oregon took an early three-point lead only to see Eastern Oregon score four in a row to tie it up and take a lead of its own. The Raiders took a timeout trailing 5-4 and followed the break with a 9-3 run to take a 13-8 lead. The Mountaineers would not give up, scoring the next three points to pull within two, but the Raiders earned set point on an EOU attack error and Bartling closed out the match with her 14th kill of the night.
As a whole, the match featured 42 tie scores and no set was decided by more than four points, with three sets decided by the minimum of two. Southern Oregon finished the night with a .188 attack percentage to .164 for Eastern Oregon, with 75 digs for each team and a one-assist advantage for EOU, 62-61.
Lea and Holgen tied for the match-high kill total with 17 apiece, with Leah adding 41 assists for the Mountaineers. Holgen finished with 11 digs and five assists for SOU. Haight added 16 kills and 17 digs for the Mountaineers, and Bartling tallied 14 kills and eight blocks in the win.
Becky Johnstone led both teams with 31 digs, while Kaitlyn Duncan finished with 28 for Eastern Oregon. Stewart posted 12 kills for EOU and Madden had 10 for the Raiders.