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Raiders to play Cascade tonight By Rich Rosenthal For The Tidings For the first time in years, the Southern Oregon University men's basketball team was idle the last week of December. The 12-day holiday break, however, screeches to a halt tonight when the Raiders host Cascade College in a key Cascade Conference game at McNeal Pavilion. SOU is off to a 4-10 start and is 0-2 in league action, but back-to-back home wins over Pacific Lutheran (Dec. 14) and Linfield (Dec. 21), both good Northwest Conference teams, have given Raider coaches and players reason to look forward to the new year. Incidentally, Southern Oregon was 4-10 overall and 0-2 in league action last season at the same juncture before turning the season completely around with an 11-6 record and a torrid playoff run that left the Raiders only eight minutes away from qualifying for the NAIA Division II tournament. For Southern Oregon's New Year's resolution to earn the school's fifth conference playoff berth over the past six seasons to come to fruition, the Raiders are counting on several first-year players to play more like juniors and seniors. Highlighted by a 10-point, 9-rebound effort against PLU, true freshman Nick Borrevik is nearly averaging a double-double (9 points, 8.5 rebounds) as a starter in the two recent home wins, while first-year collegiate player and Olympic-caliber leaper Travis Elam, a sophomore in eligibility, already has a collection of dunks and an 8.5 scoring clip in two games. Two other freshmen, forwards Ryan Gabel (8.4 points per game) and Jared Abell (8.1), are third and fourth on the team, respectively, for both scoring and 3-point shooting. When the men's hoopsters reconvene tonight, the Raiders will be guest stars in the soap opera that is the Cascade College athletics program. Since becoming the first Cascade Conference team ever to forfeit away a basketball playoff berth last February due to the season-long participation by an ineligible player, the Thunderbird men have blazed to an 11-2 start and a school best No. 17 national ranking. The 400-student Portland satellite campus of Oklahoma Christian University is on a six-game win streak that includes victories against Portland State (71-66) and perennial small-college powerhouse Lewis & Clark (73-68). Keying the CC attack is 6-foot-10 senior center Matt Evers, the league's No. 9 scorer at 17.2 per game and No. 5 rebounder at 7.6, while another top eligible player and loop MVP candidate, 6-foot-5 junior guard forward Tevis Jones, is right behind with 16.1 scoring and 5.5 rebounding clips. Raider coaches expect to see another key cog added to the Cascade cast of characters tonight: 6-foot-6, 230-pound junior forward Randy Kelly, a native of Nassau, The Bahamas. Evers nailed a short inside jumper with three seconds remaining to lift Cascade to a 94-93 come-from-behind win over SOU in the first round of the Tip-Off Tournament in Klamath Falls on Nov. 21. Women's Basketball The Southern Oregon University women's basketball team capped its non-conference slate and put the finishing touches on the 2002 calendar year Monday, when it fell 58-52 to longtime rival Western Oregon in Monmouth. Southern, which had won the past six and 13 of the last 14 games against its Cascade Conference foes, returns to league play tonight at home against Cascade College. Warner Pacific visits the following evening. Back problems nearly ended senior all-star point guard Sara Marks' playing career at the end of last season, but the Utah native is off to another great season and put the Raiders on her back in the two conference wins last week. The Eastern Utah JC transfer, who finished second in the league for scoring last season at 19.2, averaged 17.3 points in back-to-back-to-back games the week of Dec. 15-21 and also led the team in rebounds (21), assists (9) and steals (12). Although her shooting percentage is down slightly from last year, Marks still leads the team and is fifth in the league for scoring (14.4), assists (3.91), and is No. 3 in the loop for steals (2.82). Marks has scored at least 11 points in every game this season except for the season-opening blowout loss at Oregon (6). Cascade College is the foe when SOU returns to league play for good tonight, and the T-Birds are a far cry from their recent days as a conference cellar-dweller. Under the guidance of longtime AAU guru John Phillips, the rebuilt Birds feature junior guard Nicole Brown, the league leader for both scoring (24.4) and steals (3.1). Despite Brown's big numbers and a 9-4 season start, a diminutive roster prevented CC from winning at least two more games. On Nov. 9 at Christian Heritage, the T-Birds led for much of the game but lost 49-44 in a game halted after one CC player got hurt and another fouled out. In the team's most recent outing on Dec. 20 with a school-record eight-game win streak on the line, Cascade again mustered only five players, had Brown foul out in the closing seconds, and dropped a 63-58 decision at Linfield. Former Ashland High star and Lane CC transfer guard Jenny Pippa, who explored the possibility of playing at SOU over the summer but was lacking enough college credit hours to be academically eligible this season, is averaging 8.4 points in seven games in a T-Bird uniform. CC defeated Warner Pacific 71-67 in its conference opener and seeks to halt an 0-6 record against SOU since the Portland school joined the league in 1999. 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