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Last chance to catch a glimpse of Sara Marks by Joe Zavala This is it folks. Last chance. Lower the curtain, fade to black and roll credits. Sara Marks is about to play her final game in McNeal Pavilion. A moment of silence - for those who haven't seen her. The Southern Oregon University women's basketball team opens the Cascade Collegiate Conference tournament tonight at home against Warner Pacific. If they keep winning, they'll play two more home games over the next week. If not, tonight could be the curtain call for one of the brightest stars in school history. Yes, there have been more talented players at SOU, and better ones will come still. But there will never be another Sara Marks. She's a 5-6 basketball player who averages about 17 points a game. You do the math. If Kobe Bryant had the same point-to-inch ratio, rims would be raised. And it's not just the points, it's how they're scored. Reverse lay-ups, finger rolls, spinning one-handers, treys, scoops, fadeaways, charging pull-ups, backdoor cuts, fast break sprints, foul-drawing pump fakes, rebound put-backs. You name it, Marks has scored it, probably several times in the same game. The fact that she shot a team-best 46 percent from the field last season while taking some of those shots is worthy of an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. It also tells you just how good of a basketball player she is - a detail that's easy to forget as you're watching her. Marks constantly appears to be out of control. Her bowling ball like drives through the lane always seem on the verge of disaster, but somehow almost never end that way. It's that relentless aggressiveness, that steely-eyed determination that has often given SOU the edge it needed to pull out the big games over the last two seasons. In short, it's Marks' moxie that has defined this team's spectacular two-year run, during which the Raiders have won 31 of 37 Cascade Conference games en route to two straight national playoff berths. With her long hair pulled back, that floor-scrapping defensive stance and those wide-open, intense eyes (does she ever blink?), Marks is the drumbeat by which the Raider machine marches to. Soon, Marks most likely will get rewarded for all of the above in a big way. As the best player on the best team - the Raiders won the CCC regular season title with a 16-2 league record - SOU's senior floor general will almost certainly be named Cascade Conference Player of the Year later this week. That would make her the fifth Raider to bring home the league's most prestigious award and first since Nada Janackovic nabbed her second straight POY honor back in 1999. The Cascade Conference coaches submitted their votes Monday, and the results should be in soon. There will be a big story about it, and Marks will be asked things like, "How do you feel about winning Player of the Year," and "What's the key to your success." She'll immediately place the credit elsewhere - perhaps on head coach Kevin Wilson, perhaps on her five senior teammates - because that's how she deals with praise. But rest assured, Marks has earned it. She's an anomaly - a quick-shooting point guard who actually makes her team better, not worse. She's also a leader, a winner and quite possibly the best little guard in school history. She's the main reason the Raiders have a shot at advancing deep into the national tournament. But most of us won't make it to Sioux City, Iowa. So we have tonight, and possibly two more games. The end is near, people. Don't miss it. 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 -