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SATURDAY December 6, 2003 - Subscribe - Contact Us Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels December 5, 2003 Raiders drown in pool play By Rich Rosenthal Tidings Correspondent SAN DIEGO - The Southern Oregon University volleyball team finished an enormously successful 2003 season and capped its third appearance at the NAIA national tournament with a pool play sweep of 18th-ranked Indiana-Southeast Thursday in San Diego. The Raiders, the 20-team tournament's No. 17 seed, sprang a mild upset with the 30-23, 30-25, 30-23 triumph over the No. 16 draw Grenadiers (34-5) to finish the Cascade Conference and NAIA Region I championship campaign with a 24-8 final record. Despite the win, SOU's Pool A losses to top-ranked National American and 11th-ranked Columbia along with Thursday morning's three-game setback to eighth-seeded and tourney host Point Loma Nazarene prevented the three-time defending Region I champions from landing a spot in today's national quarterfinal round. "Although our 1-3 record doesn't reflect it, I thought we played the program's best-ever volleyball the past two days," Raider coach Paul Elliott said. "We were neck-and-neck with three storied programs (NAU, CC and PLNU) that have legitimate shots at winning the tournament." Senior All-American hitter Kristina Matchett racked up 15 of her team-high 29 kills on the day against IU, and compiled 2,291 career winners - four shy of the all-time regional record. Matchett, however, holds the highest career kill-per-game average in Northwest small-college lore (5.01). "I'll be disappointed if Kristina isn't a first-team All-American," Elliott said of the back-to-back second-team NAIA all-star. "For the third straight year at this tournament, she demonstrated that she is one of the smartest all-around players in the country." With all 13 players receiving at least one game of playing time, Southern rallied from an 8-3 deficit to win Game 1, erased a 16-13 IU edge in the second stanza, and never trailed in Game 3. In addition to another superlative Matchett offensive performance, senior hitters and four-year starters Sara Tatom and Lindsey Aitchison combined for 15 kills, only one attack miscue and seven blocks in their final collegiate volleyball outings. "I'm so happy that we finished on a positive note," Elliott said. "I'm glad our seniors can say they finished their careers with a win at the national tournament." SOU's title hopes were dashed with the 31-29, 33-31, 30-24 loss to Point Loma Nazarene in which the squad squandered substantial leads in all three games, including 28-26 in Game 1, 29-28 in Game 2 and 14-9 in Game 3. DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2003 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Road Cams