One win gets you into the finals, two wins gives you the championship in the Conference playoffs.
The winner of the Southern Oregon and Northwest volleyball match would face College of Idaho in the finals for the championship game. SOU has Northwest’s number as the Raiders swept the Eagles twice during the regular season.
SOU opened up the match with a 7-3 run on the Eagles and 11-4 before Northwest called their first timeout.
Northwest went on an 8-6 run to cut SOU’s lead down to a 17-12, a five-point lead following the timeout. Northwest was only able to scrap up five more points as SOU went on a 7-5 run to close out and win the first match of the night.
The second match started off with Northwest going up 6-4 on Southern Oregon before the Raiders scored four points to the Eagles one to go up 8-7. The Eagles tied it at eight on the next possession and it became a see-saw game that featured one team tying it and going up by one before the other team tied it and went up by one. The score was soon 13-13.
Southern Oregon went on a 4-0 run prior to Northwest calling their second timeout of the match. The score was SOU 17 to Northwest’s 13.
Coming out of the timeout, the Raiders and Eagles traded points as the lead increased by one to five with the score 21-16 SOU.  The Eagles scored two more to cut the Raiders lead to three at 21-18. The Raiders scored two more to regain a five-point lead that was followed by another Northwest timeout.
SOU went up two sets to none as they closed out the second set 25-19.
The third set started off with Northwest having a minor 3-1 lead before SOU tied it up at 3.
Then the battled started as Northwest went up by one before SOU tied and then took the lead only for Northwest to draw level again. There wasn’t a significant lead in this set until SOU took a 9-6 lead that was followed by a 4-1 SOU run. Northwest called another timeout with the score 13-7 in favor of SOU.
It took a Northwest 7-4 run and a 6-point lead cut into the half before SOU called their first timeout of the whole match.
Coming out of the timeout, the Raiders went on a 8-1 run to end the match, 25-15 to advance to the conference finals against College of Idaho, whom SOU are 1-1 against during the regular season. The winner will get an automatic bid to the NAIA National Playoffs.
The Raiders had hit .306 in the second match while hitting .424 to close out the match. Sarah Holgen had 16 kills, Becky Johnstone led the Raiders in digs with 15 and Lindsay Stone led the Raiders in assists with 46, a match high.
