Twelfth-ranked York captured its first-ever CAC men's lacrosse title with a dramatic 10-9 road victory over top-ranked and previously-unbeaten Salisbury on Saturday afternoon at Sea Gull Stadium. 

With the victory, the Spartans earn the CAC's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. NCAA selections will be announced on Sunday, May 8 at 9 p.m. on NCAA.com. 

It was a historical win for the Spartans, as they entered Saturday's showdown with zero wins against Salisbury in program history. Prior to Saturday, the Sea Gulls were 22-0 against York since the Spartans started men's lacrosse in 2000. Saturday was York's second appearance in a CAC championship game, with other being a 12-4 defeat to Saturday in 2014. 

York's title marks the fourth different CAC champion in the last seven years, as the Spartans join Salisbury (2011, 2012, 2014, 2015), St. Mary's (2013), and Stevenson (2010) as recent CAC champions. This is York's second CAC crown across all sports in 2015-16, as the Spartan women's soccer team won the title this past fall. 

York (16-3), seeded second in the CAC postseason, led from start to finish to hand the top-seeded Sea Gulls (18-1) their first loss of the year. Salisbury entered the championship game as the lone remaining unbeaten in the country. 

The Spartans came out firing from the start, jumping out to an early three-goal edge on first-quarter unassisted tallies from Andrew Gamble, Brendan McGrath, and Dillon Hannah. The Sea Gulls answered with back-to-back scores from Nathan Blondino and Thomas Cirillo to close out the frame with York leading 3-2. 

McGrath scored twice for York in the second quarter to help the Spartans push their lead to 6-3 at the half. 

In the third quarter, Salisbury pulled within 7-6 on a back-to-back goals from Nick Garbarino, before Gamble pushed the Spartan lead to 8-6 with his second score late in the third. 

Leading 8-7 with time winding down, Gamble and Hunter Davis scored within a minute span to stretch the York lead to 10-7 with a little over five minutes remaining. Salisbury made a furious push to make things interesting late, as Garbarino and Blondino notched scores at the 1:44 and 1:17 marks, respectively, to make it 10-9 with just over a minute left on the clock. 

Salisbury won the ensuing face off and had a potential game-tying shot from James Burton carom of the post with 48 seconds left. The Sea Gulls retained possession off the miss, but York's Josh Kluver caused a turnover with 30 seconds left and the Spartans ran out the clock to preserve the dramatic victory. 

Gamble and McGrath led the way for the Spartans' attack with three goals and an assist each, while Davis scored twice and Hannah posted one goal and one assist. Kluver spearheaded the defense with five caused turnovers, and goalkeeper Caleb Abney notched 10 saves in net. 

Garbarino (3g) and Blondino (2g) each scored multiple times for the Sea Gulls, while goalkeeper Colin Reymann turned away 10 shots in the defeat.