RAIDER STADIUM | ASHLAND, OREGON
2:30 p.m. Friday – Providence at SOU | Live Stats | Stream
2:30 p.m. Saturday – Rocky Mountain at SOU | Live Stats | Stream

ASHLAND – The Southern Oregon men's soccer team has a lot of work left to overcome a tough-luck start, but a desperately-needed road win put some wind in the Raiders' sails as they prepare to play their first Cascade Conference home matches.

SOU (4-4 overall, 1-2 CCC), coming off a 3-2 comeback win at Oregon Tech that ended the Owls' 19-game unbeaten streak, hosts Providence (Mont.) (0-3-1, 0-2-1) on Friday and Rocky Mountain (Mont.) (5-1-1, 3-0) on Saturday. Both contests are set for 2:30 p.m. starts at Raider Stadium, where the Raiders are 30-3-1 over the last five years.

LAST WEEK IN REVIEW: Staring down a 0-3 start after falling behind 2-0 in the opening 10 minutes last Saturday at Oregon Tech, the Raiders responded with their first-ever come-from-behind victory in a game that they faced a two-goal deficit. Goals from Adrian Villegas and Alan Gaytan leveled the score by halftime, and in the 74th minute Kaden Barker delivered the score of the season – taking the ball from beyond midfield and striking mid-sprint from 35 yards out to find the upper-right pocket for his first career goal. OIT hadn't lost since falling 1-0 in Ashland 364 days earlier and hadn't given up multiple goals in any of its previous 16 home games.

NAIA TOP 25: Corban, which opened the year unranked, is the CCC's lone representative in this week's NAIA Top 25 coaches' poll, moving up two spots to No. 19. Warner Pacific – last year's regular-season co-champion with Oregon Tech – is receiving votes. The Warriors and Knights are both 9-0 overall and tied for first place at 4-0 in conference play, and Rocky is next in the table at 3-0.

BRIEFLY:

• Until the win at OIT, finishing in the attack plagued the Raiders as the losses piled up. They've out-shot all but one opponents (Hope International), posting 146 while giving up 61 on the season. Over the last five seasons, their lowest annual conversion rate has been one goal per 5.8 shots on goal; in their four losses, they generated a combined 35 shots on goal and scored once. Their back-to-back CCC-opening losses at Northwest (Wash.) and Evergreen (Wash.) were especially frustrating, as they combined for advantages of 45-15 in shots and 23-8 in shots on goal but were ultimately outscored 3-1.
• With a team-high five goals, Sam Walker is already just one away from matching his career-high. He's up to 14 goals and nine assists in 49 career appearances.
• Tybalt Thornberry is No. 5 on the CCC assists leaderboard with four.
• Noah Addie, Alan Gaytan, Evan Norconk and Adrian Villegas have two goals apiece. With 21 career goals each, Addie and Gaytan are currently tied with former Raider Carlos Magana for SOU's all-time record. Villegas isn't far behind with 16, and he's No. 3 on SOU's assists list with 12.
• If the Raiders' urgency is apparent, here's why: The CCC regular-season champion hasn't lost more than one game since 2014.

ABOUT PROVIDENCE: The Raiders are hoping to avenge last year's 2-0 loss at Providence that served as a major blow to their national playoff and CCC title aspirations. It was the shiniest notch on the Argos' belt in a 4-10-1 season, and they're struggling out of the gate again without a win in four outings. Marcus John leads the team with one goal and one assist. SOU leads the head-to-head series, 3-2-1.

ABOUT ROCKY MOUNTAIN: Since a season-opening 1-0 loss to Briar Cliff, the Battlin' Bears are unbeaten in their last six matches while outscoring opponents 18-5. Igor Soares, a junior from Brazil, heads the attack with six goals and three assists and has tallied in all three of their CCC victories. Freshman keeper Stefan Schenk has a 0.9 goals-allowed average that ranks third in the conference. SOU won both meetings last year by 2-1 scores – including a CCC quarterfinal matchup – and is 4-3-1 overall in the series. The teams haven't played in Ashland since 2018. Last year was the Bears' first time outside of the top-three in the CCC table since joining the conference in 2015.