ASHLAND – The Southern Oregon softball team will play the final two weeks of the regular season with the NAIA's No. 13 ranking and a lot left to be decided at the top of the Cascade Conference standings.

The Raiders (31-10 overall, 17-4 CCC), who were in the No. 10 spot for a month before Wednesday's release of the latest NAIA Top 25 coaches' poll, stand one game in the loss column behind the CCC's three other ranked squads: No.54 Oregon Tech (33-7, 18-3), No. 11 Eastern Oregon (28-6, 18-3) and No. 20 College of Idaho (28-10, 17-3).

They play a four-game series at College of Idaho on Friday and Saturday, then host their final regular-season set against Eastern Oregon on April 26-27 while Oregon Tech simultaneously hosts C of I. As of now, EOU owns head-to-head tiebreakers over C of I and OIT, and OIT holds a tiebreaker over SOU.

The aforementioned teams have already locked up top-four seeds for the six-team CCC Tournament, set for May 3-5 on the home field of the No. 1 seed. They've combined to go 51-4 against the bottom-six teams in the standings.

This weekend's series will feature some of the best pitching matchups the circuit has to offer. SOU's Katie Machado (17-3, 1.47 ERA) and C of I's Annie Polster (14-5, 1.56 ERA) are expected to bookend the three conference-counting games, while Mayze Menefee (11-4, 1.98 ERA) is the probable starter against Grace Neer (5-0, 2.72) or Abbey Brooks (6-5, 3.52) in Game 2.

Dating back to 2019, the Raiders have won 12 of their last 14 regular-season contests against the Yotes.
 

RANK	LAST	SCHOOL [1st-place votes]	RECORD	PTS
1	1	Our Lady of the Lake (Texas) [19]	43-1	529
2	2	Oklahoma City	38-2	509
3	3	Central Methodist (Mo.)	33-3	495
4	5	Cumberlands (Ky.)	35-4	473
5	4	Oregon Tech	33-7	463
6	6	Science & Arts (Okla.)	32-7	441
7	8	Jessup (Calif.)	31-7	426
8	7	Marian (Ind.)	31-7	407
9	11	Northwestern (Iowa)	36-2	385
10	9	Georgia Gwinnett	24-12	363
11	15	Eastern Oregon	28-6	356
12	13	Midland (Neb.)	34-5	348
13	10	Southern Oregon	31-10	319
14	12	Hope International (Calif.)	31-10	313
15	14	Mobile (Ala.)	26-11	289
16	20	Madonna (Mich.)	36-3	267
17	16	Indiana Wesleyan	30-8	264
18	18	William Carey (Miss.)	30-12	211
19	RV	St. Thomas (Fla.)	31-4	206
20	22	Benedictine (Kan.)	35-7	204
20	19	College of Idaho	28-10	204
22	24	Reinhardt (Ga.)	32-8	159
22	17	Coastal Georgia	30-7	159
24	21	Middle Georgia State	26-10	147
25	22	Vanguard (Calif.)	33-11	141

Dropped from Top 25: Ottawa (Kan.)
Receiving Votes: Ottawa (Kan.) 129; Missouri Baptist 43; Southeastern (Fla.) 37; Houston-Victoria (Texas) 37; Baker (Kan.) 33; Saint Xavier (Ill.) 20; Evangel (Mo.) 15; Grand View (Iowa) 11; Embry-Riddle (Ariz.) 6; Freed-Hardeman (Tenn.) 4; Indiana Southeast 4; Mid-America Christian (Okla.) 4; Spring Arbor (Mich.) 3; LSU Alexandria (La.) 3; Aquinas (Mich.) 3