Sea Gulls

When Salisbury soccer coach Gerry DiBartolo was asked what made this year's team special enough to earn the school's first trip to the final four, he said, "From top to bottom, rating the No. 1 player to the No. 27 player, there's a minimal difference in terms of skill level. They're all at a pretty even skill level." Except for last Sunday. That was the afternoon junior forward Bill Whittington scored four goals to carry the unbeaten Sea Gulls (20-0-3) into the final four with a come-from-behind 4-2 victory over Richard Stockton in the sectional final at Salisbury.

When Salisbury "superback" Leroy Satchell carries the ball, stiff-arming his way to more than 7 yards a carry, it's almost as if he is running away from something. "When I'm out there, I'm into a zone," said Satchell, who grew up in the rough Park Heights section of Baltimore. "I always knew football was the one thing that could get me out of my situation." As a youngster, Satchell said he regularly witnessed drug activity and violence. "Being a kid, I didn't really know what to think or how to take it," said Satchell, a junior who is averaging 111.3 yards a game for the 7-0 Sea Gulls.

The first thing Salisbury women's lacrosse coach Jim Nestor tells you about his top scorer, Sue Ackermann, is how smart she is. Ackermann, a Liberty graduate, has the resume to back that up - on the field and in the classroom. Known as an attacker with an ability to read defenses, the senior has led the No. 2 Sea Gulls in scoring for two years. She carries a 3.9 grade point average, majoring in exercise science. In May, she will receive Salisbury's Female Scholar Athlete of the Year award.

SALISBURY -- Salisbury State and Frostburg State, which met here in football yesterday for the 23rd time, have developed a special -- and streaky -- rivalry.The two state schools have met every year since 1973. Neither plays another opponent from within the state.And, going into this game, Frostburg had won six straight times -- after Salisbury had won the previous seven. The Sea Gulls ended their drought yesterday, winning, 35-28, but they couldn't have done it without a helping hand from Frostburg.

In a fall version of basketball's March Madness, several area schools, including Johns Hopkins, will be competing in soccer tournaments this weekend.The Blue Jays qualified their men's and women's teams for the NCAA Division III tournament, combining for a regular-season 28-4-2 record. The women, ranked fourth in the Mid-Atlantic region, ended their season yesterday with a 3-1 loss to Elizabethtown (Pa.) in the first round of the tournament, finishing 12-4-1.The men, 16-1-1 and ranked 11th nationally, end their regular season against Franklin & Marshall on Saturday, one day before the pairings are announced.

Salisbury's march to Sunday's NCAA tournament semifinal against Stevenson includes a 21-0 record that has come with relative ease. Of those 21 wins, only two have been decided by four goals or less, and both were against the Mustangs. The Sea Gulls' average margin of victory is 13.1 goals. Competing in close games can build a team's resolve, but coach Jim Berkman said he's not worried about testing his players' mental toughness. “At this point, you don't care how you win. You just win,” he said Thursday morning.

Here is the eighth and final installment of a series that checks in with the eight Division III programs in the state to give a glimpse into the past and the future. Teams are scheduled to appear according to the chronological order in which their seasons ended. Thursday's visit was with Stevenson . Friday's visit is with Salisbury. REVIEW The good: Seven different Sea Gulls teams have completed a perfect season by capturing the national championship. So how does the 2012 squad that went 23-0 overall and 8-0 in the Capital Athletic Conference stack up?

If you think Salisbury is going to get after SUNY Cortland in the NCAA Division III men's lacrosse final this afternoon, you should have seen the Sea Gulls compete last fall. Since April 2003, the only thing between Salisbury and perfection is an overtime loss to Cortland in last season's final. They'll give championship weekend at M&T Bank Stadium a rematch this afternoon, but avenging the demise of an NCAA-record 69-game winning streak isn't behind the top-ranked Sea Gulls' 22-0 record.

A scary thing happened yesterday to a strong Salisbury State lacrosse team that has won 112 games and two NCAA Division III national championships in the past eight seasons.The Sea Gulls suddenly forgot how to catch the ball for 20 mystifying minutes against 11th-ranked Denison College.The team's struggles started late in the third quarter when Salisbury held a 9-4 lead and ended when senior attackman Scott Walstrum and senior midfielder Mike Faith hooked up on a perfectly executed scoring play with 20 seconds left in overtime for a 10-9 victory over Denison in the second game of a doubleheader at Loyola's Curley Field.

While area Division I powerhouses Johns Hopkins and Maryland prepared during the past week for their NCAA final four games this weekend, on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, about 30 miles from Ocean City, was a Division III men's program that made history last Sunday. No. 1 Salisbury's 13-11 win over No. 6 Roanoke in a national semifinal at Sea Gull Stadium marked an NCAA-record 48th straight win in any division. Today, at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, the Eastern Shore school, which hasn't lost since April 2003, will be going for its third consecutive national title, something that has been accomplished by only two teams in the 25-year history of the Division III men's lacrosse championships.