SOU wraps up home season this weekend

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The Southern Oregon volleyball team will make its final regular-season home appearances in McNeal Pavilion this weekend.

The Raiders (19-2 overall, 13-1 Cascade Conference) host Corban (9-15, 7-8) tonight and Northwest Christian (6-18, 1-14) Saturday night.

Both matches start at 7 p.m.

The Top 15 in this week's NAIA Top 25 poll remained the same, so SOU is spending its third week at No. 12.

While this is the regular season home finale this weekend, the Raiders still have a couple chances for home matches in the postseason. SOU is still tied with eighth-ranked College of Idaho for first place in the conference race, with the winner hosting the Cascade Conference tournament. The conference tournament will take place Nov. 13-14.

SOU is also putting the finishing touches on a bid to host a first-round match in the NAIA National Tournament that would take place Nov. 21.

The Raiders have a chance this weekend to go over 20 wins in a season for the 27th time in program history. SOU has won 20 matches each of the past two years. The Raiders are also looking to extend a 10-match win streak.

Southern Oregon continues to lead the Cascade Conference in almost every offensive category, as well as blocking.

The offensive stats can be contributed to a great group of hitters — but also the play of freshmen setters Angela Spieker and Caryn Westrick.

As a team, the Raiders rank second in the conference and 24th in the NAIA in assists with an average of 12 per set. While sharing time in SOU's two-setter attack, Spieker ranks fifth in assists with 5.86 per set and Westrick ranks 10th with 5.07.

The Raiders rank first in the conference in blocks at 2.4 per set and 18th in the NAIA. Megan Bartling's 97 blocks rank 19th in the country.

Corban gave the Raiders all they could handle earlier in the year, pushing the match to five sets before SOU pulled out the victory.

The Warriors played great volleyball in taking the first two sets, but SOU played some of its best volleyball of the year to win the final three sets — including an almost unheard of 15-3 victory in the final set.

Saturday night, the Raiders will honor a pair of graduating seniors as Dolores Christensen and Corynn Jorgensen will play their final regular season matches at McNeal Pavilion.

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