SALEM, Ore. – The first ever Cascade Collegiate Conference (CCC) Women's Basketball Tournament played out at a single site location is scheduled to begin tomorrow afternoon at the C.E. Jeffers Sports Center, as the 2025-26 regular season champion Warriors of No. 20-ranked Corban University earned the right to host the 2026 CCC Championships on Tim Hills Court. After sharing the regular season crown with No. 14-ranked Eastern Oregon University, the Navy and Gold secured the opportunity to host the first single site tourney in conference history following tiebreak procedure where they trumped the Mountaineers.
"We are really excited to be able to host the first ever single site conference tournament for women's basketball," shared Corban head coach Kylie Frizell when asked to discuss the anticipation heading into tomorrow's action. "We feel very fortunate to be in this situation where everything we worked so hard for over the course of the regular season pays off for us in having a huge home court advantage throughout this tournament. We are not done yet with what we can accomplish on the court. This past week has all about resetting and realizing that every team in Salem this week is entering postseason with a clean slate, and nobody can be overlooked. Now it's all about who can play their basketball starting tomorrow. It's going to be a lot of fun, and we're ready to go. Hope to see as many Warrior Nation supporters out for our team this weekend as possible!"
In addition to the hosting rights of this weekend's tourney, the Warriors (23-5, 16-4) also secured the No. 1-overall seed in the bracket and the CCC's first of two automatic bids to the 2026 NAIA National Championship Tournament that kicks off later next month. The winner of the 2026 CCC Tournament will land the conference's second automatic bid, unless Corban claims the tournament crown. Should the Warriors win out on their home court over the next four days, the Mounties of Eastern Oregon will earn the second automatic bid as the tournament's No. 2-overall seed.
Never has there been a more competitive field in the CCC tournament, with the top six seeds all separated by a two-game conference record margin after the upper half of the Pacific Northwest programs beat each other up the entirety of the conference slate. With nearly every of the top six teams either splitting season series, being swept, or sweeping their CCC adversaries to force the wackiest tiebreaker scenarios ever seen in conference history. This time, the Warriors proved to benefit most from the tiebreaking, as they broke their tie with EOU for the top seed and host responsibilities this weekend after sweeping No. 4-seeded College of Idaho, while Eastern Oregon split their two head-to-head matchups with their rival Yotes.
The Dubs will square off with No. 8-seeded Northwest University (10-18, 7-13) tomorrow evening at 5pm, looking to hand the Eagles a third-consecutive loss in meetings both this calendar year and overall. On January 2nd, the Warriors fended off a ferocious NU comeback bid at the C.E. Jeffers Sports Center to kick off the long grind of CCC play, while the Navy and Gold handled business up in Kirkland on January 31st via an 81-64 road drubbing of the Eagles.
Corban represents the highest scoring offense in the CCC with an average of 79.8 points per game thanks to a conference-leading 36.2% field goal percentage from beyond the three-point arc and nearly 18 assists per game as an offense capable of sharing the ball over the court. The Warriors are led in scoring by redshirt sophomore guard Jersey Huerta who averages 18.0 points per game, while redshirt junior guard Jenna Albrecht has caught fire from the floor recently and climbed all the way up to No. 7-overall in the CCC with 14.4 points per game.
Northwest will rely on their perimeter shooting if they want to knock off the top-seeded Warriors in the C.E. Jeffers Sports Center later tomorrow evening, as they shoot and convert on more three-pointers on average than all but one team in the CCC: the Corban University Warriors. They also shoot the ball as efficiently from deep as the Dubs do, just two percent under Corban's 35.4% average with a 33.4% mark of their own. While the Eagles don't have a top ten scorer on their team within the CCC ranks, they make up for it by starting a pair of guard both within the top twenty for scoring in Kaleah Medeiros (12.8 ppg) and Ellit Bost (11.4 ppg).
The Warriors and Eagles match up with the No. 4-seeded Yotes and No. 5-seeded Lady Owls of Oregon Tech in a possible semifinal contest, with the Yotes looking to clinch a third-straight win over OIT as well in 2025-26. With the CCC coaches voting to adopt the "straight bracket" format starting last season, there will be no re-seeding if any upsets occur which means no matter what the results are, semifinal opponents can only be one of two teams. In the regular season, Corban swept both C of I and Tech in their four meetings, downing the Yotes 73-61 in Caldwell and 79-65 in Salem, while the Warriors snapped a nine-game losing skid to OIT via an 80-64 road win and 70-60 home victory.
On the other side of the bracket remains three of the only teams to defeat the Dubs in regular season action, led by the No. 2-seeded Mounties who will battle No. 7-seeded Warner Pacific University in tomorrow's 2pm quarterfinal matchup. In the first matchup tomorrow afternoon to kick off the conference tourney are the two programs who played for the conference championship crown last season in No. 3-seed Lewis-Clark State College and No. 6-seeded Southern Oregon University. The Raiders are the only program to sweep Corban in CCC play, with Eastern Oregon and LC State both splitting with the Navy and Gold. The winner of the LCSC-SOU and EOU-WPU matchups will battle it out in a semifinal showdown, with that victor claiming a spot in the tournament championship.
Tickets for both quarterfinal sessions, Saturday's semifinal session, and Monday's championship contest are all available online at the Corban HomeTown Ticketing Box Office by clicking HERE. Tickets can also be purchased at the door on gameday, while free livestreams of each contest can be view on the Urban Edge Network, with the CCC's home site accessible HERE.
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