The 17th-ranked Raiders volleyball team was looking to pick up ground in the Cascade Conference as they faced the second-place Hornets of Concordia on Friday night.
The Raiders opened up the first set with a 9-2 scoring run over the Hornets. This momentum helped carried the Raiders through the rest of the set.
The Hornets got within six of the Raiders on two separate occasions during the first set, when the score was 14-8 and 15-9. But that would be as close as the Hornets would get to the Raiders as Southern Oregon easily grabbed the first set with a score of 25-10.
The second set was a whole different story.
Concordia opened up the set with a 6-2 run and it looked like the momentum might have switched sides.
As this happened, the Raiders started to climb back into the set. Before long, Southern Oregon was leading 7-6.
Concordia tied the game up and eventually took the lead off of attack errors by Southern Oregon. Then SOU scored two points through kills from Megan Bartling. Then Concordia tied it up at nine a piece with a kill of their own.
The Raiders went up 11-9 by Sarah Holgen before Concordia cut down the two-point lead to one. Following that, Southern Oregon scored 10 of the game’s next 17 points to be up 21-17 with another set win in sight.
But the next four points came as hard as pulling teeth.
The Raiders scored two points off of a kill from Holgen and another kill from Lauren Swetland to go up 23-17. However, Concordia answered the call by getting a kill, followed by two attack errors by Southern Oregon to cut into the lead 23-20. Southern Oregon picked up another point off of a kill to set up game point but another attack error by the Raiders left the score 24-21.
Luckily Concordia served into the net to give the Raiders the win and a two set lead.
The third set started off looking like the previous set as Concordia went on a 6-2 scoring streak.
However, Southern Oregon answered with a six-point run of their own, regaining the lead at 8-6. Concordia managed to pick up two service errors and two attack errors in between Southern Oregon’s kill by Leah Bergstrom to regain the lead 10-9.
This would be the closest the Hornets would get to the Raiders as the Raiders put together a 14 to 5 run to win the set and end the game at 25-15.
“I felt really good about [the game],†said head volleyball coach Josh Rohlfing. “The girls came together, they felt relaxed and had a high-level of intensity with them.â€
Bergstrom finished the match with a game-high 18 kills, while Bartling had a .786 attack percentage. Bartling also had a game-high five blocks along with Swetland.
