RAIDER WOMEN'S SOCCER (6-2, 3-1 CCC)
12 p.m. Friday – vs. Eastern Oregon (2-3-2, 1-2) | Live Stats
12 p.m. Saturday – vs. No. 12 College of Idaho (5-0-2, 3-0) | Live Stats
TICKETS | LIVE STREAMS

ASHLAND – Southern Oregon puts a three-game winning streak on the line this weekend at Raider Stadium against the two teams that were picked to be the best in the Cascade Conference.

The Raiders (6-2 overall, 3-1 CCC) are home Friday to face Eastern Oregon (2-3-2, 1-2), which has yet to find its footing after finishing third in last year's standings and landing at No. 2 in this year's preseason poll. On Saturday, defending champion and No. 12-ranked College of Idaho (5-0-2, 3-0) – a longtime thorn in SOU's side riding a 16-game CCC win streak that dates back to 2022 – comes to town representing the Raiders' first Top 25 competition. Both contests start at noon.

LAST WEEK IN REVIEW: SOU enjoyed its first six-point conference road trip in two years, winning 2-0 last Friday at Bushnell and 3-0 a day later at Corban. Mia Ammons had the 39th-minute go-ahead goal in the first game and the Raiders preserved the lead by preventing the Beacons from getting a single shot off, later going up 2-0 on Ava Johnson's penalty kick. Against the Warriors, they were in the driver's seat less than three minutes in on Cora Thorndike's early score. Taytum Curtis tallied later in the first half and Carter O'Shea added on in the second.

BERTANI NAMED PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Miller Bertani, SOU's junior starting center-back, earned the CCC's top weekly defensive honor after keying the team's second and third consecutive shutouts. After helping the Raiders hold Bushnell without a shot, she logged her first assist of the season in the win at Corban. The product of San Jose, Calif., has started all 27 of SOU's games since the beginning of last season, contributing to 13 shutout performances.

BRIEFLY:

• Friday Vargas has recorded at least one point in three straight games and all six SOU wins this season. The sophomore has two goals and ranks second among CCC players with five assists. One more assist would make her just the seventh player in team history with six in a season.
• Ava Johnson is fifth on the conference leaderboard with five goals. Like Vargas, she has a streak of three straight games with at least one point.
• Ashlynn Hernandez is at 25 career shutouts, needing two more to break the SOU record of 26 ½ that she established from 2013-16. Hernandez's career save percentage of .856 is the second-highest in Raider history. Her .833 clip this season is third in the CCC.
• Ten different Raiders have already scored a goal this season; six tallied in all of 2023. Behind Johnson, Skyler Coleman (4 goals, 2 assists) is second on the team in points. Cora Thorndike (3 goals, 2 assists) leads the Raiders with two game-winning goals.
• The Raiders are 43-8-6 at home since the beginning of the 2016 season.

ABOUT EASTERN OREGON: The Mountaineers returned four starters and 21 players overall from last year's team that went 7-3-2 in CCC play. One of those losses was a 1-0 decision against Southern Oregon in which Emily Hyde scored the lone goal in the 13th minute, marking the Raiders' third consecutive shutout victory in the series. They're 17-7-1 all-time against EOU, which is led by Ashley Smith's two goals and two assists. Darby McDevitt is an All-CCC first-team defender and EOU's trio of goalkeepers is posting a collective .806 save percentage.

ABOUT COLLEGE OF IDAHO: During their active 16-game CCC winning streak, the Yotes have given up a total of two goals and scored 60 of their own. They have the reigning CCC Offensive Player of the Year in Eden Makaafi (4 goals) and two more All-CCC first-team attackers in Alexis Eiguren (7 goals, 2 assists) and Natasja Davis (4 goals, 2 assists). Last year they won the regular-season matchup against SOU, 1-0, and eliminated the Raiders in the CCC Tournament semifinals for the third consecutive season. SOU is 12-15-3 in the all-time series, getting its most recent win in 2018.