Al Case, Ashland Daily Photo
No. 5 SOU gets share of regular-season title, top seed in CCC tourney
SOU Sports Information
ASHLAND – The Southern Oregon University women's basketball team has another banner coming its way. Shortly after it was secured with Sunday's 83-62 win over Corban at Mountain Avenue Gym, the fifth-ranked Raiders' chances of claiming another one improved, too.
SOU (25-3 overall) earned a share of the Cascade Collegiate Conference regular-season title, winning it in back-to-back seasons for the first time in team history. The Raiders matched Eastern Oregon with an 18-2 CCC record and forced a tiebreaker coin flip that took place on the Mountaineers' home floor after they defeated Walla Walla.
The Mounties "won" the toss, giving them the conference's first automatic bid to the NAIA Division II Championships. As the "losers," the Raiders – who are, at worst, all but assured an at-large bid to the national tournament – get the No. 1 seed and homecourt advantage throughout the CCC tournament, which will determine the conference's second automatic bid.
The Raiders will start the CCC tourney at 7 p.m. Tuesday, hosting eighth-seeded Multnomah (8-20, 6-14) in the quarterfinal round. The semifinals are slated for Friday, and the championship game will take place Feb. 27.
SOU has now gone unbeaten at home in the regular season three years in a row.
"I just want to say how proud I am of this team," SOU head coach
Alex Carlson said. "They start practice every day at 5:30 a.m., don't have a locker room, didn't play a home game until December and haven't complained at all. They just go to work, compete and get better. It's a very special group and I'm lucky to be their coach."
Senior point guard
Demi Sahlinger was the catalyst against Corban (14-14, 8-12), scoring a career-high 16 points on 8-of-12 shooting to go with four steals. For the fourth game in a row, she was also turnover-free. In SOU's last nine games, she's totaled 28 assists and two turnovers.
As a team, SOU had a turnover advantage of 23-6.
Toria Bradford had 10 points, seven assists and two steals,
Sydney Mullings amassed 13 points, six rebounds and four steals, and
Autumn Durand added 12 points and a team-high eight boards.
Maci Benedict kept the Warriors in it early, hitting all four of her 3-pointers in the first half on her way to 16 points and five assists. Tied 18-18, though, the Raiders took control by shooting 10-for-19 in the second quarter. They brought a 45-33 lead into halftime and started the third quarter on a 14-6 spurt.
Tiani Bradford scored the first four of the third and finished with eight points, seven rebounds and three assists. The bench was productive, too, as
Casey Williams,
Delaney Sparling and
Majerle Reeves scored six apiece and
Nitteayah Barfield chipped in a couple buckets inside.
Maddy Pflaumer, the CCC's leading scorer, made 7 of 12 attempts from the field to record 14 points and seven rebounds for the Warriors. They'll be the No. 7 seed in the tournament and start at EOU.
In the CCC's other quarterfinals, sixth-seeded Northwest (Wash.) travels to third-seeded Oregon Tech and fifth-seeded College of Idaho visits fourth-seeded Northwest Christian.