RALEIGH, North Carolina – The University of Maryland Eastern Shore has locked up a showdown between the MEAC's top two teams of the regular season in the MEAC Championship semifinals.

Each block of matchups saw each team go through a cycle of five game traditional matches and followed by five Baker matches with total pinfall determining a winner.

The No. 2 seed, the Hawks began the tournament against the seventh seeded Coppin State and swept the win, 2-0. Ara Pitts posted a team-best 195 in the traditional matches with Gabriella Ochoa Hubbard following with a 190, Brooke Driver a 165, Mariana Santos Rivero a 163 and Aaliyah Friend a 152 to give UMES a 865-861 advantage over Coppin State. The Hawks followed up with a 893-804 win in the Baker matches to move on in the winner's bracket of the double elimination tournament to face No. 3 Morgan State.

The Hawks split the first two rounds of competition with Morgan State as UMES lost the traditional matchup 872-854. Driver posted a team-high 192 in the round while Ochoa Hubbard earned a 184, Friend a 181, Santos Rivero a 153 and Marine Almeida a 144. However, the Hawks rebounded in the Baker matches, notching a 860-782 win to force a best of seven Baker match that they won 4-1 to take the 2-1 overall win in the round.

With a 2-0 record through the first day of competition, the Hawks will face the top seeded North Carolina A&T in the semifinals of the winner's bracket with a chance to automatically advance to the championship match on the line. Both UMES and North Carolina A&T have already punched a ticket to Sunday's final day, though, with the losing team forced into an extra 9 a.m. match on Sunday to determine the final team to compete for the tournament championship.