CCC CHAMPIONSHIPS PRESENTED BY U.S. BANK
C.E. Jeffers Center | Salem, Ore. | Feb. 27-March 2
FRIDAY – QUARTERFINALS
12 p.m. – (6) Southern Oregon vs. (3) Lewis-Clark State
2 p.m. – (7) Warner Pacific vs. (2) Eastern Oregon
5 p.m. – (8) Northwest at (1) Corban
7 p.m. – (5) Oregon Tech vs. (4) College of Idaho
SATURDAY – SEMIFINALS
5 p.m. – SOU or LCSC vs. WPU or EOU
7 p.m. – NU or Corban vs. OIT or C of I
MONDAY – Championship
5:30 p.m. – Semifinal winners

LIVE STREAM | LIVE STATS | TOURNAMENT CENTRAL

THE MATCHUP: Southern Oregon and Lewis-Clark State (Idaho) are set to meet in the Cascade Conference Women's Basketball Championships presented by U.S. Bank for the fifth year in a row on Friday – just a little earlier this time around. The Raiders (19-9 overall) will be the No. 6 seed and the Warriors (21-7) the No. 3 seed when they play the first game of the tournament with a noon tipoff at Corban's C.E. Jeffers Center. Previously, SOU won championship games against LCSC in 2022, '24 and '25, while the Warriors took a semifinal matchup in '23. Now playing on a neutral court for the first time, they'll play the rubber match of a split season series that favored the home teams.

The Warriors – ranked No. 17 in the final NAIA Top 25 after missing out on a CCC regular-season title with last weekend's home loss to Corban – defeated SOU 62-47 on Jan. 2 in Lewiston, racing out to a 30-9 lead behind Sitara Byrd's 23 points. SOU flipped the script with a 71-60 win on Jan. 31 in Ashland, never trailing in the second half as Bridgette McIntyre scored a career-high 34 points. The Raider defense will need another big showing to knock the Warriors off again. LCSC has the 13th-best offensive rating in the NAIA, as three playoff-tested veterans lead the way with Byrd (14.2 points, 2.5 steals) and Payton Hymas (12.5 points, 4.3 assists, 2.6 steals) in the backcourt and Darian Herring (11.9 points, 8.9 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 2.2 blocks) patrolling the paint. SOU enters the tourney with the country's 16th-best defensive rating.

PLAYOFF PICTURE: The tournament is bracketed as of last year, meaning the SOU-LCSC winner will play a semifinal at 5 p.m. Saturday against the winner of a quarterfinal between No. 2 seed Eastern Oregon and No. 7 seed Warner Pacific. EOU and Corban were regular season co-champions, but Corban won the tiebreaker to earn hosting rights – this is the first year the tourney is being played at a single site – and the CCC's first automatic NAIA Tournament bid. The second auto bid goes to the tournament champion, though it will drop to EOU if Corban wins the tourney.

No matter what happens this weekend, the Raiders appear to be in solid position to at least receive an at-large bid to make their fifth NAIA Tournament appearance in as many seasons under head coach Carlotta Kloppenburg-Pruitt. They have wins against four Top 25 teams and were No. 33 in this week's latest NAIA RPI computer rankings. The 64-team field will be announced on March 5 at 5 p.m.

BRIEFLY:

• In the tightest regular-season race in the history of the CCC, the Nos. 1 and 6 seeds were separated by two wins in the standings. Before this season, those seeds had never been separated by fewer than three wins, and last year the margin was 12.
• Bridgette McIntyre enters the weekend with 92 3-point makes – the third-highest total in the NAIA this season and just nine shy of the SOU single-season record established by All-American Remi Mejia in 2017-18. McIntyre broke SOU's single-game record with 10 triples two weeks ago against Warner Pacific. In conference play, her average of 15.7 points ranked fourth and she hit 17 more 3-pointers (65) than any other player. Dating back to Jan. 9, she has made 28 consecutive free-throw attempts.
• In 21 postseason games under Carlotta Kloppenburg-Pruitt, only one opponent has reached the 70-point mark against the Raiders.
• Eliza DiGiulio has scored in double figures 11 games in a row. On the final CCC regular-season leaderboard, she ranked 13th in points (12.3), sixth in 3-point percentage (41.0) and seventh in free-throw percentage (83.0).