Box Score LA GRANDE – The Southern Oregon volleyball team battled back from two sets down to force a fifth set, but the Raider comeback fell short in the final game as Eastern Oregon defeated SOU 3-2 (25-18, 25-22, 19-25, 16-25 and 15-10) Saturday night at Quinn Coliseum.

The loss drops Southern Oregon's overall record to 18-10 this season, 14-4 in Cascade Collegiate Conference play, while Eastern Oregon improves to 22-6 overall and 14-4 in the CCC. Southern and Eastern Oregon finish the 2012 regular season tied for second place in the conference standings, with Eastern Oregon holding the tiebreaker edge over the Raiders for the second seed in the CCC Tournament.

Southern Oregon will have the third seed in the conference tournament and will host a tournament quarterfinal match against No. 6 seed Warner Pacific on Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Bob Riehm Arena. The winner of that match will advance to the tournament semifinals on Friday in Caldwell, Idaho.

Sam Boehnke (Ashland, Ore./Ashland) finished the match with 11 kills and no errors on 13 chances for an astounding .846 attack percentage. That mark is the highest single-match attack percentage for an SOU player since at least 2007, with no other player cracking .800 in that time. Natalie Scheller (Bend, Ore./Bend) led SOU with 14 kills, while Haley Kasler (Grants Pass, Ore./Hidden Valley) added 12 and Mona Goudarzian (Albany, Ore./West Albany) finished with 11. Caryn Westrick (Bonney Lake, Wash./Bonney Lake) tallied a team-high 35 assists, while Angela Spieker (Bremerton, Wash./Central Kitsap) posted a double-double with 25 assists and 12 digs and Renee Yomtob (Boise, Idaho/Centennial) finished with 26 digs.

Casey Loper led Eastern Oregon with 14 kills, while Rebecca Haight added 12 kills and 16 digs. Karly Stack finished with 36 assists and Kaitlyn Duncan tallied 29 digs.

Southern Oregon scored the first four points of the opening set, and the Raiders used a six-point streak to pull ahead 16-9. But Eastern Oregon scored the next four points, and following a kill by Kasler the Mountaineers rattled off 10 straight points to turn a 17-13 deficit into a 23-17 advantage. Another Kasler kill ended the run, but EOU picked up the next two points to take the set victory.

The Raiders started strong in the second set as well, building an early 7-3 lead before EOU used an 8-1 run to pull ahead 14-11. Southern Oregon tied it back up at 18-apiece, but EOU slowly pulled up and finished the 25-22 set win on a kill by Katie Keeney.

Eastern Oregon looked like it might pull away to a sweep early in the third set as the Mountaineers built a 13-8 lead. But Southern Oregon rallied, scoring eight of the next 11 points to tie it up at 16-16, and the Raiders followed that with a five-point streak to claim a four-point lead. A pair of kills and a block by the Raiders picked up the final three points as SOU took the set 25-19.

Southern Oregon dominated the fourth set, limiting EOU to a .029 attack percentage in the set. The Raiders scored eight of the first 10 points, including back-to-back blocks by Kasler and Boehnke, and the Raiders pulled away to the 25-16 win to force a fifth set.

Back-to-back blocks and three consecutive attack errors by SOU gave Eastern the first three points of the set. Southern Oregon pulled within one at 5-4 on a block by Scheller and Nikkie Keller and a kill by Keller, but EOU scored the next six points to virtually put it away. The Raiders looked like they might have one last run in them, using a 5-1 stretch to pull within 12-9, but EOU scored three of the next four to claim the match victory.