TOURNAMENT CENTRAL
KLAMATH FALLS – Extra innings were unkind to Southern Oregon against Eastern Oregon again on the first day of the Cascade Conference Softball Championships presented by U.S. Bank.
The No. 14-ranked and third-seeded Mountaineers won 5-4 in eight innings against the No. 4-ranked and second-seeded Raiders on Friday at Stilwell Stadium, a week removed from a 15-inning matchup between the teams that went to EOU and ultimately cost SOU the outright regular-season title.
With two outs in the top of the eighth, All-CCC second baseman Madelyn Durham lined her third hit of the game into center field and drove in Raygun Klippert for the go-ahead run. SOU's
Ari Williams led off the bottom half with a walk, but the Raiders couldn't get her pinch-runner past second following a sacrificing bunt.
The Raiders (44-7 overall) now need five consecutive wins to capture the title. They play their first elimination game at 11:30 a.m. Saturday against College of Idaho. The winner of that game will play another at 4:30 p.m. against Carroll (Mont.) or British Columbia.
The Mountaineers (30-9) advanced to play at 2 p.m. Saturday against top-seeded Oregon Tech for a spot in Sunday's championship round.
The Raiders took a 3-0 lead in the second inning after
Piper Love's single up the middle drove in Williams and
Sarah Kerling's single scored two more. It was a 4-2 game in the sixth, where the Mountaineers put the tying runs in scoring position with a single, a walk and a sac bunt. An RBI groundout off the bat of Katelynn Evans brought the first run home, and a throwing error with two outs leveled the score.
The defensive mistake eventually made
Ayla Davies a tough-luck loser in the circle, dropping her to 27-4. She's taken three losses in extra innings and been victimized by unearned runs in the sixth inning or later in each of those.
Kylie Parsons earned her second decision of the day for the Mountaineers by pitching three scoreless innings in relief. She shut out Carroll in a 3-0 win earlier in the day.
Kerling, Williams and
Faith Moultrie finished with two hits each for the Raiders.
