SIOUX CITY, Iowa — Xavier University of Louisiana dominated the first 21 minutes before unbeaten Southern Oregon rallied for a 67-60 round-of-16 victory Thursday in the 44th annual NAIA Women's Basketball Championship, presented by Sterling and Bomgaars.
        The Raiders — 34-0, No. 2 in the final coaches poll and a No. 2 seed in the tournament — scored 29 third-quarter points, 11 by Bridgette McIntyre, after Kam Shelley's basket gave the Gold Nuggets their largest lead, 36-22. But SOU didn't clinch until a closing 10-3 run after Zaria Harleaux's basket for XULA tied the score at 57 with 4:16 remaining.
        Joy Campbell, Janiya Reed and Patricia Sosa Lora scored 11 points apiece for XULA, 29-4, No. 22 in the poll and a No. 6 seed. Sosa Lora grabbed a game-high 12 rebounds in her team-leading fifth double-double.
        XULA led 32-22 at halftime and limited the Raiders to four field goals in their first 26 attempts.
        Morgan Baird scored 23 points for SOU, which will play Bethel (Tenn.) at 1 p.m. Saturday in the quarterfinals, and McIntyre and Emma Schmerbach scored 14 apiece.
        Schmerbach's basket with 3:59 remaining put SOU ahead to stay at 59-57.
        NOTES:  This was the Gold Nuggets' first appearance in the third round of NAIA nationals. This was XULA's 24th time to qualify for the tournament . . . XULA head coach Bo Browder's first college coaching job was at two-year Lassen (Calif.) College in the 1990s; the person who hired him, Gary Kloppenburg, is an SOU assistant — and Gary's daughter, Carlotta Kloppenburg-Pruitt, is in her fourth season as SOU head coach. "I babysat Carlotta a few times when I was at Lassen," Browder said . . . Junior guard Gabrielle Morrison was honored pregame as XULA's NAIA Champions of Character recipient, and her parents attended . . . XULA finished with a school-record-tying 29 victories and the best winning percentage, .879, in the program's Title IX history. Browder's 2004-05 team was 29-5, and Janice Joseph's 1996-97 Gold Nuggets were 29-7 . . . XULA's 1993-94 and 1997-98 teams were 28-4 and held the previous Nuggets winning percentage mark of .875 . . . Southern Oregon and NYU — 30-0 after a 74-55 victory Thursday against Wisconsin-Stout in the NCAA Division III semifinals at Salem., Va. — are the only remaining unbeaten four-year teams in U.S. women's college basketball this season.