NAIA MEN'S SOCCER CHAMPIONSHIPS | ROUND 2
Pioneer Field | Olathe, Kansas
11 a.m. PST Saturday – No. 20 SOU (18-3) at No. 18 MidAmerica Nazarene (12-4-4)
LIVE STREAM | LIVE STATS | BRACKET

ASHLAND – The Cascade Conference Tournament championship left a sour taste with a Southern Oregon men's soccer team that had spent the previous month and a half rolling over everyone in its path. On Saturday in Olathe, Kan., SOU can make that loss a distant memory.

Their winning streak freshly snapped at 11 games, the No. 20-ranked Raiders (18-3) visit No. 18 MidAmerica Nazarene (Kan.) (12-4-4) in the second round of the NAIA Championships for an 11 a.m. PST start at Pioneer Field. SOU is the only team in the NAIA to reach the 18-win mark this season, but the Pioneers – seeded No. 14 overall in the tournament – have proven formidable against the best with a win over Grace (Ind.), the No. 3 seed in the tourney, and a draw against top-seeded Mid-America Christian (Okla.). MNU will be the first Top 25 team the Raiders have seen this season; the Pioneers have already seen six of them.

PLAYOFF PICTURE: The Raiders and Pioneers both received byes through Thursday's first round, which featured only the bottom-16 seeds in the 40-team bracket. Saturday's winner will advance to the final site – the Scheels Stryker Sports Complex in Wichita, Kan. – to play in the Round of 16 on Nov. 28 against the winner of a second-round game between No. 3 seed Grace (Ind.) and Briar Cliff (Iowa). The tournament continues every other day leading up to the Dec. 4 championship.

The Raiders got in automatically by winning the Cascade Conference regular season title. They're the only CCC team left after College of Idaho, the CCC Tournament champion, lost 2-1 to Menlo (Calif.) in a first-round contest. MNU also earned an automatic bid by advancing to the Heart of America Athletic Conference Tournament final.

BRIEFLY:

• Last week, the CCC named Adrian Villegas as its offensive player of the year – the first in SOU history – and Casey Ruvolo the defensive player of the year. Villegas is one of only two players in the NAIA with at least 15 goals and 10 assists, sitting on 15 and 11. He enters the tournament as the Raiders' co-leader in all-time goals (35) with Alan Gaytan and their sole leader in career assists (24). Ruvolo allowed just three goals with 36 saves in conference play, and his season save percentage of .835 ranks second on the CCC leaderboard. He has helped the Raiders to 11 shutouts, one off the NAIA lead.
• Gaytan and Villegas have been at their best down the stretch, both scoring three goals in the CCC Tournament. Gaytan – who became the first Raider ever to get five All-CCC nods after garnering honorable mention last week – registered five goals and two assists over his last five outings. Villegas totaled six goals and two assists over his last five. Evan Norconk has joined Gaytan, Villegas and Noah Addie as the only 10-goal scorers in SOU single-season history.
• Prior to their CCC Tournament loss to C of I, the Raiders had only trailed for a total of 12 minutes over their previous 11 games, and for only 24 minutes since their Sept. 9 loss at Menlo (Calif.).
• The Raiders have defeated five Top 25 teams in team history, most recently No. 23 Corban on Oct. 22, 2022. The highest-ranked team they've ever defeated was No. 9 Rocky Mountain (Mont.) in 2018. They're attempting to become the first CCC team to reach the final site since three teams got there five years ago.
• Davie Carmichael, now a two-time CCC Coach of the Year, enters the game with a record of 80-20-7 in six seasons at SOU. His teams have gone 32-12-3 on the road.

ABOUT MNU:

• The Pioneers are making their 12th appearance in the tournament, all since 2007, and have qualified each of the last four seasons. They won a first-round game last year against Oregon Tech and advanced to the national quarterfinals in 2021. Their 21st-year coach, Kevin Wardlaw, led them to the semifinals in 2012 and to the championship match in 2015.
• They feature 18 international players representing 14 different countries. Their leader in points, senior Jony Munoz, is a Kansas native with 11 goals and seven assists. Rick Hovinga, a junior from Netherlands, leads the team with 12 goals and has four assists. As a unit, the Pioneers have outscored opponents 45-24 and gone 10-1-2 when scoring multiple goals, but they've only posted two shutouts since Sept. 19.
• They hit a 0-3-1 stretch beginning Sept. 30 that included matchups with a pair of Top 25 opponents, then went on to win five consecutive games before losing the HAAC Tournament title game to No. 12 Missouri Valley, 3-2. They took third in the HAAC regular season standings at 6-3-2. Overall against Top 25 competition, they're 2-2-2.

SOU TOURNAMENT HISTORY: The Raiders are in the tournament for the third time in their nine-season history, but none of the players on the current roster were around when they made their last appearance in 2018. In 2017, they drew No. 8 Georgia Gwinnett in the Opening Round and lost 3-2, surrendering the game-winner in the 74th minute. A year later, they scored a 1-0 overtime win against UC Merced in the Opening Round at Raider Stadium, then fell 2-0 against top-ranked Rio Grande in the Round of 16.