The top two teams in the CAC regular season - Salisbury and Stevenson - battled to semifinal round playoff victories Thursday and will meet Saturday at 6 p.m. in Salisbury, Md., for the 2011 CAC volleyball championship.

Top-seeded Salisbury decisioned Mary Washington by a 3-0 count to advance to the championship match for the fourth time in the last five years.  The Gulls won the CAC title six times since 1998, including three-straight years  from 2007-09.

Second-seeded Stevenson, with the most wins in the conference this season (31), went the distance to fend off sixth-seeded York in the other semifinal match, 3-2.  It will be the Mustangs' first appearance in the CAC championship match.

Thursday at Salisbury, the Sea Gulls rolled to the CAC championship match with a 3-0 win against Mary Washington in the semifinals Thursday.  Top-seeded Salisbury took a close first set, 25-21, before dominating the final two sets, 25-13 and 25-15 to advance to the title game Saturday against second-seeded Stevenson .

Neither team could take control in the first set as the teams were never separated by more than three points until a kill by junior Carley Todd put the Sea Gulls (30-3) up 22-18. The teams traded point, but a kill from junior Chelsea Glowacki, assisted by senior Lindsey Saltzman, closed out the set.

Salisbury jumped on the fourth-seeded Eagles (17-16) in the second set, leading 3-0, and later putting together an 8-4 run to stretch the lead to five points. The Sea Gulls continued to surge, with kills from sophomore Sam Seifert and freshman Mattie Smith to close out the set. The kill for Seifert was one of her match-best nine while Smith had five kills in the match.

Nothing was going to stop the Gulls in the final set, including a 20-minute delay due to a fire alarm. Salisbury opened up a 10-point lead, 16-6, before the delay. After a quick warm-up period, the Eagles scored the first four points to cut the lead to 16-10, but that was as close as Mary Washington would get. Salisbury rattled off a 9-5 run, with freshman Michelle Meehan closing out the match with a service ace.

Along with Seifert's nine kills, she also had three block assists, one of four Sea Gulls with at least that many. Juniors Jenna Shay and Kelly Vieira also had three each while Glowacki led the way with six block assists. Meehan had a team-best 12 digs. Defense was key for Salisbury, which held the Eagles to a .066 hitting percentage in the match.  Saltzman had 15 assists for Salisbury while Todd had 10 to go with five kills and three service aces.

At Owings Mills, Md., Stevenson (31-2) needed an 18-16 decision in the fifth set to gain a 3-2 victory over York.  The Mustangs won the first two games, 25-20 and 27-25, before dropping the next two sets, 25-19 and 25-20, setting up the final game heroics.

Christine Isenberg and Avery Gabbard each registered a match-high 19 kills to lead the Mustangs.  Isenberg also led the winners with 32 digs while Gabbard had three of the team's four solo blocks.  Jessica Gieselman dished out 54 assists and had 19 digs. 

YCP (16-17) was led by Melissa Patterson's 13 kills, .371 hitting percentage and five blocks (one solo).  Cortni Rentzel dished out 41 assists and had 17 digs while Ashley Rineman had 32 digs and four of the Spartans' nine service aces.