Montgomery, Ala. – The College of Coastal Georgia women's volleyball team made it through the first two days of the Southern State Athletic Conference Tournament unscathed as the No. 21 Mariners won their final two matches in pool play Friday at the Cramton Bowl Multiplex.

The Mariners finished unbeaten in Pool A after wins Friday over Brenau and Faulkner, both by 3-0 scores. Coastal Georgia has yet to drop a set in the tournament after also defeating Loyola 3-0 in its opening match of the tournament on Thursday.

As the top seed in the tournament and the defending champion, Coastal Georgia (28-3) will now move on to the semifinals, putting the Mariners within two victories of sweeping the SSAC regular-season and tournament championships a second straight season.

The Mariners will meet Dalton State in one semifinal at 11 a.m. Saturday. The Roadrunners are the No. 6 seed in the tournament and advanced out of Pool B after an upset of No. 3 seed Bethel on Friday.

The other semifinal will pit Faulkner which emerged as the runner-up from Pool A after a tiebreaker against Mobile, which won Pool B with a 3-0 record.

The semifinal winners will meet in Saturday's 3 p.m. championship match. The tournament champion earns an automatic berth into the NAIA national tournament.

"Making the final day is the first challenge of the tournament," said Coastal Georgia head coach Jeff Huebner. "I'm excited by the way we are playing. We were the only team to get through in the minimum required sets. Day 3 is always a different intensity, and it's something we are familiar with, so I think that helps us a lot. I think we are peaking at the right time and have a great opportunity to earn the automatic qualifier this weekend."

The Mariners have beaten Dalton State by 3-0 scores twice this season. Should the Mariners advance to the finals with a third win over the Roadrunners, they would meet a Faulkner team they have also beaten twice this season or a Mobile team that was the only team to defeat the Mariners in conference play to keep them from going a perfect 16-0 in the league.

On Friday, the Mariners sailed past Brenau, winning the opening two sets of the match by 25-7 scores before ending the contest in less than an hour with a 25-20 win in the third set.

The Mariners were efficient offensively with 38 kills in 57 attacks while hitting .579 as a team. They committed just five attack errors. Eleven different players recorded at least one kill for the Mariners. Regan Coughlin had the most with seven while Alexis Downey, Kyra White  and Allie Shannon all followed with five each.

Cayley Meiners finished with 27 assists.

Coastal Georgia limited Brenau to single-digit kills in all three sets including just one in the opening stanza. The Golden Tigers finished with more errors (16) than kills (15) in the lop-sided affair.

Kara Neisen led the Mariners with 12 digs. Coastal Georgia finished with 6.5 team blocks and was perfect in serve receive with no errors in 29 chances.

In the match against Faulkner, the Mariners won by 25-18, 25-21, 25-11. They registered 47 kills in 94 swings to hit .398 as they made 10 errors. Emma Anderson and Coughlin were a strong one-two punch as Anderson totaled 14 kills while Coughlin finished with 10. Shannon finished with nine kills while Neisen followed with seven.

Meiners assisted on 40 shots for points by the Mariners.

While holding the Eagles to a .181 hitting percentage, the Mariners totaled 42 digs with Alyssa Keeve and Neisen leading the way with 13 and 11, respectively.

The Mariners finished with seven team blocks and again were near-perfect in serve receive with just two errors in 42 chances.

"So far in the tournament we have really attacked well," Huebner said. "I think Cayley's decision-making has been really good, but she can't seem to pick wrong. All of our attackers are averaging more than two kills a set which is proving to be tough for teams as they try to defend us.

"I think the key has been our middles. Kyra White is hitting over .500 for the tournament and Allie is hitting just over .700. That has really opened up lanes for our pins to hit in."