Document text
Raiders hope to improve on winning streak at home By Rich Rosenthal For the Tidings The timing of a critical weekend of Cascade Conference action couldn't be better for the Southern Oregon University fastpitch softball team. The 18th-ranked Raiders (23-8, 7-3) enter home weekend sets with Eastern Oregon (Friday) and Albertson (Saturday) on a five-game wining streak containing a 41-2 scoring binge and a .414 team batting average. Although the hot spell might result in a modest climb in this week's NAIA top-25 poll, the weekend frays will go a long way in determining the league title picture and the four-team Region I tournament field. SOU, seeking the school's first softball crown, is currently tied atop the league standings with Oregon Tech (20-18, 7-3) and equal in the loop loss column with the Mountaineers (17-10, 5-3). Fourth-place Albertson (13-10, 3-5) is two games back in the hunt for the necessary top-three finish that yields a regional berth. Southern, which plays its final six regular-season contests at University Field, swept EOU and split with the Coyotes on the road earlier this month. The Raiders are also attempting to carve into a statistical oddity that has diminished home-field-advantage the past two seasons SOU has a higher win percentage on the road (26-4, .867) than at home (15-7, .682) dating back to March of 2002. For the first time in the program's three-year NAIA history, Southern Oregon players swept Cascade Conference weekly performance honors. Sophomore Haley Varley netted player-of-the-week status, while senior Brandi Brown collected pitcher-of-the-week accolades. Varley went 10-for-14 in the four Raider victories, an astronomical .714 clip that raised her league-leading batting average to .442. In fact, the former North Medford all-state standout is hitting .762 over the past six games and has 14 multi-hit outings in 31 season contests. The regional all-star second baseman is five safeties away from equaling her own season hits record (51) established in 2002 and one away from the top runs-scored mark (30). Brown went 3-0 for the week with a pair of one-hitters, and the former Colton High star struck out 13 and yielded only eight hits and one earned run in 16 innings of action. The wily righthander, who leads the five-team league in every pitching category, lowered her season earned-run-average to 1.39, secured her third consecutive 20-win season and improved to 67-30 over the past three years. Track & Field With the all-important Cascade Conference championship meet on the horizon, Southern Oregon University's top track and field athletes will to travel to historic Hayward Field in Eugene for Saturday's University of Oregon Invitational. The annual Duck hunt-for-national-qualifying-marks begins at 10 a.m. on the venue that has hosted 13 USA, AAU or NCAA championship events and three U.S. Olympic Trials. The visit to the fast Hayward track surface is eagerly awaited by members of the Raider men's and women's relay teams, which are rapidly closing in on the NAIA performance standards necessary for a May trip to Olathe, Kan. The U of O action is the team's final tune-up prior to the May 3 conference fracas at Raider Stadium, and it is the ninth of 11 season opportunities for SOU athletes to qualify for nationals. Women's Tennis The legions of Southern Oregon University women's tennis fans won't need to go far to witness the squad's latest quest for a first-ever NAIA tournament berth. The Raiders (10-3) come off a two-week hiatus in a big way Friday when they host the four-team NAIA Region I tournament. Southern joins the University of Alberta and Albertson College in hopes of unseating seven-time defending regional champion Lewis-Clark State College and earning an automatic berth to the 24-team NAIA fracas in Peachtree, Ga. LCSC, which currently ranked eighth nationally and has topped each of its regional foes by 9-0 counts during the regular-season, has a roster full of international all-stars and is a prohibitive regional favorite, but Southern Oregon hopes a 17-1-1 home record over the past six years will help level the odds. The team-format tournament opens with SOU facing Albertson or Alberta in the first round 9 a.m. Friday, and the semifinals are slated for 2 p.m. that afternoon. The championship and consolation duals culminate Saturday at 10 a.m. All matches take place on the McNeal Hall or Raider Stadium courts. In the event of inclement weather, the events will be shifted to afternoon and evening starts at either the Ashland Racquet Club or the Southern Oregon Tennis Club in Medford. Southern Oregon enters the regional meet having won six of its past seven team outings and has already secured the school's sixth straight winning season and sixth consecutive 10-win-or-better campaign. The Raiders capped the regular-season with short-handed victories at Mills and Dominican colleges in the Bay Area on April 4-5. Fifth-year head coach Gail Patton expects senior ace Bridget Wagner, who missed the Bay Area trip in order to catch up on academics, to be back in the SOU lineup this weekend. Wagner is 16-6 overall and 9-2 with partner Kristin Maloney in doubles. Maloney, the No. 2 singles draw, boasts a team-best 20-6 record and is one of only a handful of Raiders ever to reach the 20-win season plateau. Megan Loeding (18-8), Heather Virell (18-8), Erika Moller (14-10) and Katie Ketchum (10-14) round out the SOU lineup. As a team, Southern is 7-4 all-time against Albertson but has yet to crack the win column in four tries against LCSC since 1998 and is 0-3 the past two years against Alberta. SOU finished as the regional runner-up to the Warriors in 1998, '99 and 2000, and it topped ACI for third-place among five squads a year ago. LINKS: DAILY TIDINGS: Main | News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Opinion | Columnists | AP News | Subscribe | Archives | Weather | Classifieds | Contact Us | Privacy REVELS: Main | Calendar | Dining | Movies | T.V. OTHER: Road Cams Copyright 2003 Ashland Daily Tidings 541.482.3456. 1661 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland, OR 97520. Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. - Advertisers -