ASHLAND – Two nights after its winning streak came to an end, the No. 17-ranked Southern Oregon volleyball team rode the ebbs and flows of another emotional match to a five-set Cascade Conference win over Bushnell on Friday night at Lithia Motors Pavilion.
The Raiders (11-2 overall, 5-1 CCC) fought back from a 2-1 sets deficit to down the Beacons 25-14, 21-25, 26-28, 25-19, 15-13.
Mylena Testoni accumulated 18 kills and 14 digs, and she pounded five of those kills in the final set to give SOU its first tiebreaker victory of the season.
Bushnell dropped to 8-6 and 3-3. Momentum was in its favor after a bizarre ending to the third, where SOU initially celebrated a 25-21 before a replay wiped
Katie Vroman's clinching kill off the board. The Beacons ended the set on a 7-2 run to steal it away, then took a 3-1 lead in the fourth.
The Raiders regrouped to hold the Beacons at a .000 attacking average in the frame and ran away with it, then Testoni and
Hailey Van Well took over the fifth. They trailed 5-4 when Vroman and
Carol Melo flipped the lead by teaming up for back-to-back blocks. Still leading by one, Van Well put them up 14-11 with three kills in a six-point span, and Testoni later finished it off with her final strike.
"That was a huge character builder for us," SOU head coach
Josh Rohlfing said. "We've been on the cusp with tight games going the other way here and there, and we had to really gut one out against a great Bushnell team. We had a lot of different people step up, too."
Van Well finished with 12 kills and
Sadie Byrd had six kills and assisted five of SOU's nine blocks. Vroman and Melo combined for 10 kills and just one error on 24 swings.
Kayla Neidigh steadied the back row with 26 digs, and
Trinity Atuatasi added 17 more.
Setters
Gwen Sheldon (27 assists) and
Hannah Randall (23 assists, 9 digs) helped the Raiders to a .168 attack.
Their win was especially critical considering the team coming to town at 7 p.m. Saturday: No. 6-ranked Corban, the defending conference champion coming off a straight-set win at Oregon Tech.
Jessica Northcutt led the Beacons with 20 kills, eight digs and four assisted blocks. Halle Neumann poured in 13 kills, and Callie Wilkins had an outstanding night at libero with 32 digs.
