melvin
Al Case, Ashland Daily Photo
84
Oregon Tech OIT 19-7, 9-7
88
Winner Southern Oregon SOU 21-5, 14-2
Oregon Tech OIT
19-7, 9-7
84
Final
88
Southern Oregon SOU
21-5, 14-2
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 F
Oregon Tech OIT 43 41 84
Southern Oregon SOU 40 48 88

Game Recap: Men's Basketball | | SOU Sports Information

Raiders clutch again, send Owls home with 88-84 loss

ASHLAND – As of late Tuesday night, the 14th-ranked Southern Oregon men's basketball team is still not in the business of blowing opponents out or making life easy on itself. But at least the Raiders are back to being on top when it comes to their rivalry with the Oregon Tech Owls.

For the ninth time this season the Raiders turned a halftime deficit into a Cascade Conference victory, 88-84 over the Owls inside Mountain Avenue Gym, and sent 45th-year Oregon Tech coach Danny Miles home with a loss in what was possibly the final matchup against his alma mater.

The Raiders (21-5 overall, 14-2 CCC) still haven't led at halftime against any of the other top-eight teams in the conference. Nonetheless, they remain one game back of first-place Northwest Christian with four regular-season games left after being picked fifth in the CCC preseason poll and have now won nine of their last 10 against OIT (19-7, 9-7).

Gary Melvin acted as the sparkplug, scoring 12 of his career-high 19 points in the second half and going 7-of-10 from the field. Three other Raiders ended up in double figures, too: Jordan West (18 points), Ben DeSaulnier (17 points, six rebounds) and Joel Spear (16 points, nine assists, nine rebounds), who was a shade off his first career triple-double. Clay Sierra added seven points and five assists and came up with four key steals.

Despite shooting 58 percent (18-of-31) in the opening 20 minutes, the Raiders trailed 43-40 at the break.

The Owls stayed in it thanks to some timely outside shooting, hitting 13 of 29 attempts from 3-point range behind Lavar Moore, who scored 26 points and made two of his five triples with hands in his face to give OIT a chance in the final seconds.

The second half featured three ties and five lead changes. The last one occurred when DeSaulner hit a fall-away jumper with 8:02 left, putting the Raiders up 64-62 in the middle of a 9-0 run that Spear capped with a 3-pointer to make it 69-62. After Austen Flint's 3-pointer trimmed SOU's edge to 79-76 with 2:44 left, DeSaulnier responded with an NBA-range 3 at the end of the shot clock to push the lead back to six and put the Raiders in the driver's seat.

SOU went 6-for-6 from the foul line in the final 22 seconds, as DeSaulnier hit four and Justin Martin knocked down a pair.

Joel Yellow Owls scored 19 for the Owls and Flint had 13 with six assists. They shot 49 percent as a team, but the Raiders survived on easy baskets with a 52-30 advantage in the paint and a field-goal percentage of 56 (33-of-59).

The Raiders – now 14-2 for the first time since they won the CCC with the same record in 1998-99 – round out their regular-season home schedule on Saturday against Eastern Oregon and Sunday against College of Idaho. EOU and OIT are the only teams that have knocked off SOU in conference play.

The Raiders have also clinched homecourt advantage in the first round of the CCC tournament, which will take place on Feb. 24.
 
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