Box Score KIRKLAND, Wash. – Southern Oregon men's basketball coach Brian McDermott claimed his spot alone atop the program's coaching leaderboard Friday night as the 24th-ranked Raiders defeated Northwest 80-73 in Cascade Collegiate Conference action.

The win, Southern Oregon's first in Kirkland since 2007, improves the Raiders' record to 19-8 overall and 10-5 in conference play and moves them one step closer to clinching a home game in the first round of the conference tournament. Southern Oregon ranks third in the standings with three games to go, two games behind Warner Pacific for the second spot, one half-game ahead of College of Idaho for the fourth spot and 1.5 games ahead of Northwest for the fifth spot.

McDermott's 242nd win at Southern Oregon moves him one ahead of Ted Schopf and into sole possession of the SOU program record. With that milestone achieved, the Raiders will take on Evergreen at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday looking to move yet another step closer to their first home conference tournament game since 2006.

The Raiders came up big on both offense and defense in the win. Southern Oregon shot 55.3 percent (26-of-47) from the field while limiting Northwest to only 37.7 percent shooting (26-of-69). The two teams made the same number of shots, but Northwest attempted 22 more than SOU, including 33 attempts from beyond the arc for the Eagles.

David Sturner (Philomath, Ore./Philomath) posted a 15-15 night in both points and rebounds, while Eric Thompson (Roseburg, Ore./Roseburg) made eight of his nine shot attempts to score a team-high 19 points while grabbing seven rebounds. Taylor Roos (Salem, Ore./Sprague) added 10 points in the win.

Michael Russo finished with a game-high 21 points for the Eagles. Ryan Dornik scored 16, Nemanja Grujicic tallied 13 and Michael Greene posted a double-double with 12 points and 12 rebounds.

It was all about the second half for Southern Oregon after the Raider offense struggled early. In the opening period, SOU shot only 38.1 percent (8-of-21) and turned the ball over nine timesto give Northwest a 14-0 advantage in points off turnovers. The struggles led to the Eagles claiming a 33-26 lead at the break.

Southern Oregon turned it all around in the second half, shooting a scorching 69.2 percent from the field (18-of-26) – including 4-of-8 from three-point range – and making 14 of 18 attempts from the free throw line to outscore Northwest 54-40 in the period.

It took the first seven minutes of the second half before the Raiders finished erasing the halftime deficit to tie it up at 46-46 on a layup by Jordan West (Gymea Bay, Australia/Port Hacking). Even after that point, Northwest continued to pull ahead, as the Eagles took a five-point lead on a Grujicic three with four minutes to play.

From that point on, Southern Oregon outscored the Eagles 17-5 to claim the victory. Three free throws by Sturner pulled the Raiders to within two and Tim Weber (Roseburg, Ore./Roseburg) dropped a trey to put SOU back on top 69-68 with 3:01 remaining. Southern Oregon led the rest of the way, as Thompson made back-to-back jumpers and Weber and Sturner followed with free throws to close out a 13-point SOU streak that gave the visitors an eight-point lead in the final minute.

Northwest picked up a Green tip-in and a three by Ryan McIntosh, but the Raiders had a layup by Thompson and a pair of free throws by Kyle Tedder (Coos Bay, Ore./Marshfield) to ice the seven-point win. The victory clinches a regular-season split with Northwest, giving SOU an even 1-1 record with each of the top five teams in the conference (excluding SOU).