By: Josh McDermott, SOU Sports Information Director
ASHLAND – The most demanding road trip in the Cascade Conference will demand even more of the Southern Oregon University volleyball team this year.
The Raiders (6-6 overall, 3-2 CCC) play Friday at College of Idaho (4-7, 4-1), which has won or shared each of the last seven conference championships, has stolen nine of the last 10 matches on its home court against SOU and will come in toting a four-match win streak.
That's not even their toughest stop, either.
On Saturday the Raiders take on the Eastern Oregon Mountaineers (15-2, 5-0) – they of a nine-match win streak, two of the three top hitters in the conference and the NAIA's No. 11 ranking, which is the highest in school history.
Raider head coach Josh Rohlfing was pleased with SOU's output last weekend, when first-place Concordia snuck a win out of Riehm Arena thanks to a pair of 26-24 sets before the Raiders finished off Warner Pacific the next night in four. But he knows it will take a little more if the Raiders are to return happy.
"I still feel really good about what we did," Rohlfing said. "It's just a process getting to know each other in crunch time, and we should get some more opportunities this week. This is a huge test but it's exciting."
Senior libero Renee Yomtob (Boise, Idaho/Centennial) – who on Friday moved into third place on SOU's career digs list – thought the Raiders continued to move in the right direction, too.
"It felt a lot better," Yomtob said. "Even from the first set of the weekend to the last set, I could feel us trusting each other more and being able to stay more aggressive."
Lately the Mountaineers haven't been giving crunch-time opportunities to anyone, winning each of their last 20 sets. They're second in the league with a .261 attacking average behind the work of 5-foot-10 middle Casey Loper, who leads the CCC in hitting (.459) and kills per set (4.0). Stefani Sorensen, a 6-foot outside hitter, is third in hitting (.361) and fourth in kills (3.33).
The Raiders are 10-5 against Eastern since Rohlfing took over, but lost two of three last year including a second-round conference tournament match after the teams had matching 14-4 records in the regular season.
"That's going to be a monumental task to compete on their home court," Rohlfing said. "They returned pretty much everyone and their two big players are on fire. They just play with such a high intensity that's hard to match with their skill."
The Coyotes were initially slowed by injuries and a grueling schedule – faltering at the same Biola Invitational that left SOU with a record of 0-4 – but the preseason CCC favorites have looked more like themselves since getting their first win on Sept. 13. They were able to stay hot despite being pushed to five sets by Corban and losing 25-9 in their first set against Northest Christian last weekend.
Sophomore setter Sierra Porter's 9.32 assists per set are third in the conference, helping three teammates rank in the top 12 in kill per set: Liz Myers (3.16), Sofia Anxo (3.00) and Elisa Brochado (3.00).
"We've been doing what we can in practice to get ready mentally, but every team in the conference has been really good so far so we just expect the best from everyone," Yomtob said.
SOU and College of Idaho, which have split their last 10 meetings, are the only teams to have won a conference championship in the last 10 years. The Raiders lead the all-time series 58-26.
Raider hitter Liz Madden (Manson, Wash./Manson) was stellar again last weekend with 22 kills in just seven sets. She's 13th in the league at 3.00 per set and eighth with a .312 hitting percentage.
Madden is the only Raider to rank in the CCC's top 15 in kills, but as a team they still rank third behind Concordia and Eastern. Contributing to that balancing act are two of the most efficient hitters in the league, Nikki Keller (Carson City, Nev./Carson) (.389 averaage) and Tyana Andrews (Rochester, Wash./Centralia) (.280). Emma Gasman (Clovis, Calif./Buchanan), Mona Goudarzian (Albany, Ore./West Albany), Paulla Pinheiro (Fortaleza, Brazil/Colegio Farias Brito), Keller and Andrews are all posting more than 1.50 kills per set.
Freshman setter Lauren McGowne (Coos Bay, Ore./Marshfield), meanwhile, has set new season highs in assists in each of SOU's last three matches and is now fifth in the CCC at 8.44 per set.
