Photo courtesy of Bob Palermini.
EOU, SOU get rubber match in CCC Tournament presented by U.S. Bank final
No. 2 Eastern Oregon (27-4, 18-2 CCC) at No. 1 Southern Oregon (27-3, 18-2 CCC)
7 p.m. PST Monday – Ashland, Ore. (Mountain Avenue Gym) – Live Stream | Live Stats | Tournament Central
LA GRANDE, Ore. – The 13th-ranked Eastern Oregon and sixth-ranked Southern Oregon women’s basketball teams will tend to some unfinished business in Monday’s title game of the Cascade Collegiate Conference Championships presented by U.S. Bank.
Tipoff is slated for 7 p.m. at Mountain Avenue Gym in Ashland. It’ll be the first time the Mountaineers (27-4 overall) and Raiders (27-3) have ever hooked up for the title, and the first time since 2009 that the regular season co-champions square off in the final.
Both teams went 18-2 in conference play, losing on each other’s home floors, and have already assured themselves the CCC’s two automatic bids to the NAIA Division II Championships, the 32-team bracket for which will be revealed Wednesday. A coin flip last Sunday determined EOU would receive the first bid while SOU would get the top seed in the CCC tournament; the Raiders locked down the second bid Friday when the rest of the field was cleared in the semifinals.
The Raiders are the defending tournament champions and are 6-1 all-time in the championship game, including a 5-0 mark at home. They’ve won 27 straight home games overall – 22 of those have been decided by at least 20 points – and kept the streak active by eliminating eighth-seeded Multnomah in the quarterfinals, 84-62, and fifth-seeded College of Idaho in the semis, 93-70. Against the Yotes they went 14-of-26 from 3-point range, getting five triples from Majerle Reeves, and point guard Demi Sahlinger’s 12-assist and zero-turnover performance helped them shoot 54 percent from the field. Through two rounds they’ve totaled 25 steals, and their average turnover margin of plus-10.8 ranks second in the nation.
The Mountaineers, who allow the second-fewest points per game (55.1) in the nation, will be tasked with slowing them down. Seeking their fourth tournament championship and first since 2013, they denied seventh-seeded Corban’s upset bid in the quarterfinals, 76-66, and dominated third-seeded and 24th-ranked Oregon Tech in the semis, 70-41. Junior guard Maya Ah You has been their catalyst through the first two rounds, averaging 18 points (on 14-of-23 accuracy) and nine rebounds, and as a team they held the Warriors and Owls to 31-percent shooting combined. During the conference action, EOU led the CCC in field-goal percentage (46.9), 3-point percentage (37.8) and opponents’ shooting percentage (34.5).
Of SOU’s three CCC losses the last two seasons, the Mountaineers were responsible for two of them. The Raiders took this year’s first meeting, 77-68 on Jan. 14 in Ashland, behind Autumn Durand’s 19 points in a game that featured 13 lead changes and six ties. Durand – the CCC’s top scorer (16.8) and third-leading rebounder (7.8) – was held to 2-of-10 shooting and her lowest point total of the season (5) in the second meeting, a 74-61 Mountaineers win on Feb. 10 in La Grande. Ah You scored 19 points and Stormee Van Belle added 17 in that one, but an EOU bench that totaled 33 points on 12-of-21 shooting was the difference.
SOU has a 42-41 edge in the all-time series, and EOU last won in Ashland in 2014. The teams’ last postseason meeting was in the 2014 semifinals, when the Raiders knocked off the top-seeded Mountaineers, 80-62, in La Grande. EOU dominated SOU in the 2013 semifinals, 83-55, and went on to secure a one-point win against College of Idaho for their most recent crown.