NAIA MEN'S SOCCER NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP – OPENING ROUND
10 a.m. PST Saturday – SOU (14-6-1) at #8 Georgia Gwinnett (11-3-2)
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ASHLAND – Hanging in uncharted territory 10 days ago meant celebrating conference regular-season and tournament titles for the Southern Oregon men's soccer team. Now it means a cross-country trip to northern Georgia for the NAIA National Championship Opening Round.

The Raiders (14-6-1 overall), on the national stage for the first time, will be pitted against the eighth-seeded Georgia Gwinett Grizzlies (11-3-2) Saturday at 10 a.m. Pacific Time in Lawrenceville, Ga. The Grizzlies are in the field for the fourth time but have previously neither won nor hosted an Opening Round game.

Postseason Picture: Before they won the Cascade Conference tournament championship, the Raiders secured one of 24 automatic bids to the national tournament by winning the CCC regular-season title. (Corban got the conference's second automatic bid for advancing to the CCC tourney final.) The Grizzlies, on the other hand, lost in the Association of Independent Institutions tournament final but received one of six at-large bids, which were handed out by the newly-formed National Selection Committee.

Fourteen other Opening Round games are set for Saturday at campus sites across the country. The winners will advance to the final site – the Seacrest Soccer Complex in Delray Beach, Florida – where the second round, quarterfinals, semifinals and championship will take place from Nov. 27 to Dec. 2. Keiser (Fla.) is the final-site host and therefore automatically among the final 16 teams.

If They Win: Either SOU or GGC will advance to play the winner of an Opening Round game between ninth-seeded Vanguard (Calif.) (15-3) and UC Merced (13-2-4) on Nov. 27 at 1 p.m. PST. Also in this quadrant of the bracket is top-seeded Oklahoma Wesleyan (19-1-1), the most likely candidate to play the Raiders in the quarterfinals if they get that far on Nov. 29 at 10:30 a.m.

CCC Championships in Review: SOU revved up its thrill ride in the conference tournament, where it had previously never won, before getting 11 days between games. The Raiders triumphed in overtime in the quarterfinals and title game – scoring golden goals in the 91st minute of their 1-0 win against College of Idaho and the 99th in their 2-1 win against Corban – and, in their only regulation victory, didn't score the lone goal until the 66th minute of a semifinal matchup with Northwest Christian. Three different players accounted for the game-winners: Zac Hansen, Mitchell Pinney and Logan Guler. The use of a wide cast of heroes followed a season-long trend for a team that hasn't needed to rely on a single star: 11 Raiders have now scored at least one goal, seven have scored between three and five, and seven have had game-winners.

Briefly:
– SOU is one of six teams in the tournament for the first time, joining Waldorf (Iowa), Houston-Victoria (Texas), William Woods (Mo.), UC Merced and Truett McConnell (Ga.).
– Hastings (Neb.) is the defending champion as the No. 15 seed. There hasn't been a back-to-back champion since Lindsey Wilson (Ky.) in 2000-01.
– The Raiders haven't trailed in a game since their Sept. 30 loss at Corban, a span of 10 games and 940 game minutes.
– SOU is one of three teams with an NAIA-high 12 shutouts. Top-seeded Oklahoma Wesleyan and No. 14 Cumberland (Tenn.) are the others. In the Raiders' shutouts they've allowed an average of 2.4 shots on goal, and they haven't allowed an opponent to put more than five shots on goal since their fifth game of the season.
– The Raiders have won in overtime three of their last four games. Prior to that stretch, they'd been winless in their previous six OT contests dating back to the 2015 season.
– Guler's golden goal to beat Corban was scored on a header – just like his game-winners on Oct. 6 against Eastern Oregon and Oct. 13 against Northwest, the defender's only other goals of the season.
– Guler, Sean McManamon and CCC co-Defensive Player of the Year Wyatt Zabinksi were first-team all-conference selections. Travis Hopkins and Paul Matyas landed on the second team, and Biniam Afenegus was voted CCC Coach of the Year.

About Georgia Gwinnett:
– The Grizzlies are in the tournament for the second year in a row, having lost a 3-2 overtime match to Thomas (Ga.) in 2016. Their other appearances were in 2013 and '14.
– In his sixth year, Steve DeCou has been the Grizzlies' head coach since their inaugural season in 2012. He's gone 76-23-12 overall.
– Like SOU, GGC has a youthful roster with 16 of 24 players in their freshman or sophomore seasons. The Grizzlies' 15 foreign players represent England, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Jamaica, Montenegro, Peru, Sweden, Switzerland and Tunisia.
– After starting the season 8-1-1 and peaking at No. 5 in the national poll, they've gone 2-2-1 in their last five games. Their A.I.I. tournament championship loss was a 2-0 decision against Waldorf (Iowa). They've played six games against national tournament teams with wins against No. 7 Lindsey Wilson (Ky.), West Virginia Tech and Keiser (Fla.), and ties against No. 14 Cumberland (Tenn.) and No. 6 Mobile (Ala.).
– They're led in scoring by freshman Michael Weber (6 goals, 4 assists) of Switzerland and seniors Samuel Sampaio Gomes (5 goals, 4 assists) of Germany and Jack Gurr (4 goals, 5 assists) of England. Collectively they've outshot opponents 253-128 and outscored them 32-12.