SOU-Oregon Tech Boxscore

The Southern Oregon volleyball team advanced to Saturday's Cascade Conference Tournament finals with a 25-23, 23-25, 25-18, 23-25, 15-12 victory over Oregon Tech in the semifinals this afternoon in Caldwell, Idaho.

The Raiders will face the winner of the Eastern Oregon/College of Idaho semifinal.

SOU is now 20-9 on the season, while Oregon Tech finished the year 22-7.

Junior setter Lindsey Stone (Ashland, Ore./Ashland) had one of her best matches of the year, finishing with 60 assists, 14 digs and seven kills with no errors

Leanne Stennett (Encinitas, Calif./San Dieguito) finished with 16 kills, while Mia Wortel (Estacada, Ore./Estacada) and Sarah Holgen (Honolulu, Hawaii/Ashland) both had 15 kills. Maggie Rivers (Salem, Ore./McNary) had a team-high 27 digs and Holgen added 11.

Krista Wooley led OIT with a match-high 21 kills.

The first set was a preview of how the match would go, with neither team getting much of an upperhand.

Tied at 20-20, sophomore Leah Bergstrom (West Linn, Ore./West Linn) came through with a kill to give SOU a slim 21-20 lead and an OIT attack error gave SOU a 22-20 lead. The Owls still trimmed the lead to one at 22-21, 23-22 and 24-23 before Stennett put away a kill to give SOU the first set victory.

The two teams traded victories in the second and third sets and then OIT jumped out quick in the fourth set and held off a late SOU charge to tie the match at two sets each and forced the final set.

In the final set, SOU head coach Josh Rohlfing inserted freshman sparkplug Kalista Harrison and the move paid off immediately.

Back-to-back kills by the Roseburg product gave SOU a 4-1 lead and an OIT service error had SOU rolling at 6-2.

OIT tried to hang around and cut the lead to 11-10, but back-to-back kills by Harrison and Holgen gave SOU a 12-10 lead and a Holgen kill put an end to the match and sent SOU to the championship.

The winner of Saturday's championship match receives an automatic berth to the NAIA National Tournament.