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--> --> Feb. 11: SOU women move up in standings By Joe Zavala Ashland Daily Tidings The rabid fans, the Sponge Bob Square Pants introduction, the pep band - whatever it is about McNeal Pavilion the Raiders like so much, they'll experience it again at least one more time. The Southern Oregon University women's basketball team clinched at least one home game in the Cascade Collegiate Conference playoffs Saturday with an 83-72 win over Albertson in their last regular season home game. Their seventh straight win (four at home) also lifted the Raiders (15-9, 11-3 CCC) into second place in the league standings, one game behind Eastern Oregon heading into the final week. "Oh yeah, we love it," said Raider junior post Ashley Nunley, who had eight points and a team-high 12 rebounds. "We were so glad to come out here and beat them by that much. They beat us and they put us in the ground at their place, so we had to come back and get some revenge." The Raiders were clobbered 66-44 at Albertson (17-9, 10-4) back on Jan. 4, but that was when they were still figuring out first-year coach Kevin Wilson's shoot-first, ask questions-later system. Now, SOU is the hottest, highest-scoring team in the conference, having tied the 1997-98 school record of five consecutive 80-point-or-better outings. "We're playing very well as a team," Wilson said. "If you look at the stats, if you look at the assists, things are getting distributed all around and we believe in this. We've been pushing from Day 1 and that's what makes basketball fun, when everyone's going in the same direction." That direction would be up. SOU has won 9 of its last 10 games - eight by 11 points or more and four against Eastern Oregon, Concordia and Albertson, who are a combined 54-21. Southern's closest game against that group came Thursday, when they led EOU almost the entire way in a 90-81 victory. "We're just playing the best of our season right now ... we're beating everybody," said Kara Magee-Arick, who had 11 points and eight rebounds in 18 minutes off the bench. "We're playing really well and we're playing our game." Five Raiders scored in double figures led by Sara Marks' 20 points and 12 assists. Marks, a junior point guard, also had four of SOU's 13 steals. Melissa Core, one of just two seniors on the team, went 4-for-6 from beyond the arc en route to 14 points. Also for the Raiders, Amy Tangedahl scored 10 and Kelley Dexter notched 12 points on 4 of 5 shooting, six assists and five steals. There was one tie and two lead changes and each occurred in the first 3:01. After that it was all SOU, as the Raiders used a 12-2 run at the end of the first half to take a 41-23 lead at the break. Albertson, which upended Western Baptist on the road two days earlier, fell behind by as many as 25 points in the second half before ending the game on a 30-16 run to make the final score look more respectable. The closest they got after halftime was within 10 with 2:04 left, but SOU scored the next four points to quickly kill that threat. The game was won in the first half, when the Raiders hit 50 percent of their shots (16 of 32) while holding the Coyotes to 21 percent (6-for-28) shooting. SOU shot 45 percent (33-for-74) for the game to Albertson's 35 percent (23-for-66). "We had really good defense, everyone hustled and our shots were going in," Raider guard Lindsey Hilaire said. Jeanie Thompson and Heidi Goicoechea scored 22 points each to lead the Coyotes, who also got 18 points and 15 rebounds from Kristen Bailey. No other Albertson player scored more than four. The Raiders picked up 26 assists to pass EOU for the Cascade Conference's team assist lead. They are averaging 17.42 assists per game to Eastern Oregon's 17.41. Goicoechea's 3-pointer with 4:17 to go in the first half cut the Raider lead to 29-21. SOU led by just 10 points with 3:18 to go before rallying. Dexter got things started with consecutive layups on two assists by Core and two free throws on four attempts. That gave the Raiders a 16-point lead with 1:04 left, which they increased to 18 on Core's jumper with 14 seconds remaining. An 8-0 run early in the second half got Albertson within 13 with 15:35 left. Core drained a 3-pointer 57 seconds later to start SOU on a 10-0 burst which ended with the Raiders up 61-38 at the 11:47 mark. The lead was up to 67-42 with 9:25 left before Albertson put together one final run, a 14-2 surge over the next three minutes to cut it to 69-56. The Raiders didn't flinch, thwarting the threat when their leader, Marks, nailed a free-throw line jumper 17 seconds later. Tangedahl added another jumper on SOU's next possession to push the lead back to 17. "We don't panic," Wilson said. "That's what is real characteristic about this team, we don't panic. That's kind of what we've been trying to do from the start. We believe in ourselves so we believe that we're going to win the game, from minute one. It doesn't matter if we're down 20 or up 25, we think we're going to do well. We're going to do the same things over and over again and that's what we do, we don't panic." Since the top five teams are separated by just two games, it's still possible Southern will slip to fourth, but that would still yield a home game against the No. 6 team. A collapse that drastic is unlikely, however, because one of SOU's last two games is against conference cellar dweller Warner Pacific (4-23, 1-12). Their final road swing starts Friday at Western Baptist (21-10, 11-4) and ends in Portland the next night. Eastern Oregon (19-3, 12-2) beat Western Baptist in Salem Saturday to retain sole possession of first place. Albertson slipped into a tie with Concordia (18-9, 10-4) for fourth. For the Raiders to have any real shot at a regular season conference championship, they must win their final two games, which means they'll have to beat Western Baptist on Friday in Salem. The Warriors won their first nine home games before losing two straight to the Coyotes and Mountaineers last week. Can the Raiders make it three in a row? "We have to, we owe them one," Wilson said, referring to Western Baptist's 73-67 win at McNeal Pavilion on Jan. 17. "Western Baptist has kept us in second place." Wilson was a little less talkative about the keys to the game. "Score more points than they do," he joked. "I don't know, it's really hard to say. I just want this team to enjoy this and I'm really happy for us and happy for the players, the way they've really, really bought into this. "It's a lot of fun. Everybody's having fun, fans, people on the radio, team members. It's hard to take something away from somebody when you believe in it so strong and that's what they're all doing right now." SOU Men's Basketball At La Grande, Jeff Tacheny scored a career-high 30 points on 12 of 20 shooting Saturday, leading the Southern Oregon men to a 79-73 win over sister school Eastern Oregon. T.J. Caughell added 22 points on 8 of 10 shooting for the Raiders, who improved to 11-15 overall, 7-9 in the Cascade Collegiate Conference. The Mountaineers fell to 5-19 overall and 2-15 in the CCC. The Raiders are tied with Cascade for sixth place in the league standings and have already clinched a spot in next week's playoffs. Unless they move up, they'll open the postseason on the road against either Western Baptist (23-6, 12-4) or Oregon Tech (21-8, 11-5). Trevor Exline led EOU with 17 points on 6 of 12 shooting. Neither team had trouble making shots. The Raiders shot 54 percent (28-for-52) for the game, 61 percent (14-for-23) in the second half, while the Mountaineers shot 56 percent (28-for-50). SOU led 38-28 at the half. SOU Wrestling At Tacoma, Wash., the Raiders had two individual champions and four second-place finishers but it wasn't enough to grab the team's third straight Northwest Conference wrestling championship on Saturday. Embry-Riddle unseated the defending champions by nabbing four individual titles and four more second-place medals in the third annual event. Chris Huntley (165-pounds) and Wes Balensifer (197) ran the table to pick up league championships for the Raiders, while Colin Murphy (141), Devin Parks (184) and Mike Whitehead (285) each came up short in the finals. John Sills (197) of SOU also made the finals, where he defaulted to Balensifer. Huntley needed just one minute to pin Embry-Riddle's David Rivera in the championship bout. The Raiders also got third-place finishes from Jordan Ottow (133), Brian Wilson (174) and Abe Haddon (184). The NWCW tournament is basically a tune-up for nationals, to be held March 1-2 at Great Falls, Mont. The Raiders have already qualified the highest number of wrestlers possible for nationals, and now it's up to coach Mike Ritchey to determine who will go. Email your... Technical questions & comments to: WebMaster Daily Tidings editorial comments & questions to: Editor Visit our other Oregon Newspapers... | Albany Democrat-Herald | Ashland Daily Tidings | Corvallis Gazette-Times | | Lebanon Express | Newport News-Times | Springfield News | Cottage Grove Sentinel | Ashland Daily Tidings 1661 Siskiyou Blvd. Ashland, OR 97520 Telephone 541-482-3456 © Copyright 2001 Lee Northwest Publishing