Montgomery, Ala. - The College of Coastal Georgia women's volleyball players will soon be getting fitted for another Southern States Athletic Conference championhip ring.

The Mariners claimed their third consecutive SSAC tournament title Saturday afternoon with a 3-1 victory over Bethel in the conference tournament finals at the Cramton Bowl Multiplex.

Coastal Georgia (28-8) guaranteed itself a third straight trip to the NAIA national championship tournament as well with the win over the Wildcats. The Mariners get one of the league's automatic bids as the conference tournament winner while Mobile had already earned the bid that goes to the regular-season conference winner.

The Rams shared the SSAC regular-season crown with the Wildcats (29-6), but won the tiebreaker for the automatic berth to nationals.

Both teams will learn their opening opponents when the national tourney field is announced on Monday. They will have to win a first-round match at a campus venue to reach the final site in Sioux City, Iowa.

The Mariners are happy to have that chance.

"We are so proud of this team," said first-year Coastal Georgia coach Leah Mihm. "They played a fundamentally sound match against Bethel and we were able to adjust to their mid-match changes.

"It was a great match for both teams, and we are honored to be the tournament champions for the third straight year."

Coastal Georgia was the third seed for the tournament, and was the second seed from its pool after losing a 3-2 decision in its final pool match to Bethel on Friday.

That meant Coastal Georgia had to defeat Mobile which went 3-0 to win the other pool in the semifinals on Saturday to make it to the title match. Coastal Georgia topped the Rams 3-2 to get to the finals.

Bethel, meantime, defeated Faulkner 3-0 in the other semifinal, to also get to the finals. The Wildcats had beaten the Mariners twice by 3-0 scores in the regular seaon and clipped the Mariners in their third meeting Friday.

But in the finals, the fourth time was the charm for the two-time defending conference champions who took the opening two sets, and after falling in the third set, ended the suspense with a victory in the fourth stanza.

Coastal Georgia finished with 55 kills and 24 attack errors in 156 swings to hit. 199 for the match.

Bethel also had 55 kills in 167 attempts but made 35 hitting errors to finish hitting .120.

The Mariners got 17 kills from Rachel Amundson, 12 from Kayla Gadberry and 11 from their new career kills leader Allie Shannon who was named the tournament MVP.

Cayley Meiners, who made the all-tournament team, dished out 51 assists while also notching 10 digs.

Eloisa Sales, the SSAC Player of the Year, led Bethel with a match-high 21 kills. She had 34 in the semifinal win against the Mariners.

Alyssa Keeve, who now has over 1,000 career digs, and Gadberry led the Coastal Georgia defense with 16 digs each while Amundson added 12.

Coastal Georgia finished with 12.5 team blocks including 23 assisted blocks with several players notching those.

Kyra White, who had seven kills and a team-best seven assited blocks in the final, also made the all-tournament team from Coastal Georgia.