Al Case / Ashland Daily Photo

Southern Oregon is on the road for the final weekend of the regular season with an opportunity to lock up its first Cascade Conference championship in four years.

Against the No. 13-ranked team in the NAIA, the No. 1 Raiders (42-4 overall, 22-2 CCC) will have to earn it. They visit Eastern Oregon (26-7, 20-4), which can capture its first regular-season title since the CCC was a four-team circuit in 1999 only by winning all three conference counters. Doubleheaders begin at 2 p.m. Friday and 11 a.m. Saturday.

SCENARIOS: A single win in the three-game CCC portion of the series will guarantee at least a share of the championship for SOU. The Raiders’ magic number to clinch the title outright is two – meaning any combination of SOU wins or Oregon Tech losses equaling or exceeding two. The No. 2-ranked Owls enter the weekend tied in second place with EOU, two games back at 20-4, and finish their schedule at No. 23 College of Idaho. OIT won the title outright each of the last three seasons; SOU won it the three seasons before that. If the Raiders and OIT end up co-champions, the Owls own the tiebreaker for the No. 1 seed based on their series win at SOU. In the less-likely case of a first-place tie between EOU and OIT, the Mountaineers hold the tiebreaker.

POSTSEASON PICTURE: The No. 1 seed will host the six-team CCC Tournament, which is a double-elimination affair running May 2-4. Before that starts, the national office will announce next Thursday the 10 hosts for the NAIA National Championship’s Opening Round, which take place May 12-15. The final Top 25 will be released next Wednesday, but based on their current No. 1 ranking, the Raiders are a near lock to host for the sixth time in seven postseasons.

BRIEFLY:

• The CCC Pitcher of the Week award has been handed out 10 times and Ayla Davies has won six of them after collecting another on Monday. The freshman right-hander went 4-0 – allowing two runs and six hits with 25 strikeouts and one walk over 19 innings – in last week’s four-game sweep of College of Idaho. With a 26-2 record, she has five more wins than any other pitcher in the NAIA and is tied atop the ERA leaderboard at 0.80. One more shutout would give her 15 and match the SOU single-season record, and nine more strikeouts would make her the third Raider to log 200 in a season.
• Kailer Fulton needs six more stolen bases to become the third Raider with 100 in a career. She has 34 in 35 attempts this season and ranks second among CCC players in batting average (.460) and runs scored (48).
• Sarah Kerling leads the CCC in both overall batting average (.474) and average in conference play (.472). She is attempting to become the fifth Raider in seven seasons to win the CCC batting title.
• Hailey Seva is the reigning CCC Player of the Week after going 5-for-6 with a home run, two doubles, two walks, five RBIs and five runs scored in three games against C of I. The senior has compiled 33 extra-base hits in just 227 career at-bats with the Raiders.

ABOUT EOU:

• The key to the Mountaineers’ success is pitcher Kylie Parsons – a senior with a 12-0 record and a 1.46 ERA across 81 1/3 innings. She has battled injury late in the season, and two weeks ago she did not appear in a series loss to Carroll that enabled SOU to overtake EOU for first place. The Mountaineers had won 18 consecutive games before that hiccup, and they suffered another critical loss last week at lowly Bushnell. Parsons went 2-0 with a 1.56 ERA against SOU last season.
• EOU’s balanced lineup – which bats .324 and has gotten home runs from eight different players – is led by freshman shortstop Raygun Klippert (.407, 30 runs) and All-CCC senior second baseman Madelyn Durham (.383, 9 XBH, 28 RBIs).
• They met SOU last year in the CCC Tournament championship round, where All-CCC outfielder Hannah Tyree hit an RBI double and a two-run home run in a 5-4 victory. Tyree is currently batting .300 with 11 extra-base hits.
• SOU is 78-36 all-time against EOU. The Raiders dropped four of six matchups last season but haven’t lost a CCC series to the Mountaineers since 2017.