Raiders will have two chances Thursday to earn seventh World Series berth in eight years

ASHLAND — Through two days of the NAIA Opening Round, the Southern Oregon softball team is acting like it has been here before. The Raiders took over the driver’s seat in the Ashland Bracket on Tuesday and are a win away from their seventh World Series berth in eight years.

After play was suspended midway through their tournament opener on Monday, the top-seeded Raiders slept on a one-run lead and returned to finish off a 3-1 win against fifth-seeded College of Idaho. It put them in a matchup with third-seeded Hope International (Calif.) a few hours later, and they needed just five innings to wrap up a 10-2 victory with a pair of five-run frames.

The Raiders (47-8) will be off on Wednesday as back-to-back elimination games play out. They’ll face whoever survives those in the championship round at 11 a.m. Thursday, with two chances to win one game.

They’ll have a well-rested ace in Ayla Davies, who earned her 29th and 30th victories of the season with consecutive complete games. The freshman right-hander tied SOU’s single-game record with 14 strikeouts against the Yotes (27-19) and did so without walking a batter. The only run she allowed scored after a routine fly ball was lost in the sun and turned into a triple.

The Raiders built a 2-1 lead against C of I on Monday and padded it on Tuesday when Hailey Seva pulled her seventh home run of the season — and fourth in her last 11 games — to lead off the fifth inning. The Yotes, who have dropped all six matchups against SOU this season, went down quietly the rest of the way as Davies retired nine of the last 10 batters she faced.

The offensive fireworks were widespread against Hope International (36-14), which was a 2-1 winner in its tourney opener Monday against second-seeded Saint Xavier (Ill.).

The Raiders scored all five of their first-inning runs with two outs. Sammie Pemberton opened the floodgates with a three-run double that bounced to the wall in center field; Brooke Nordahl and Faith Moultrie tacked on RBI singles.

SOU led 5-2 before striking for five more in the fourth, where Kennedy Kila’s two-run, opposite-field triple was the dagger. All nine batters in the lineup tallied at least one hit. Kila, who also scored two runs, and Nordahl, who stole two bases, tallied two hits apiece. Moultrie drove in two runs, Sarah Kerling went 1-for-2 with a triple and a walk, and Vanessa Lang scored twice.

Davies struck out five in her 27th complete game, a four-hitter. Only one of the runs she allowed was earned, and only one Royal reached base in the final three innings. She became the second player in team history to win 30 games in a season.