For the second straight year, the Muhlenberg football team has been selected to participate in the ECAC Championships. The Mules (7-3) will travel to Wilkes-Barre on Saturday to face King’s (7-3) for the ECAC Southeast championship.

The game, scheduled for a noon kickoff, matches two teams that won ECAC titles last year. Muhlenberg defeated Wilkes, 26-22, in the Southwest title game, while King’s toppled Ursinus, 45-20, to capture the Southeast championship.

The Mules earned the bid after tying Western Maryland for the Centennial Conference championship. The Monarchs finished third in the Middle Atlantic Conference, behind Widener and Lycoming.

The teams have two common opponents. King’s played the same teams the first two weeks of the season that Muhlenberg played the last two. The Monarchs lost to Hartwick (33-26) and defeated Moravian (14-13), and the Mules defeated Hartwick (63-13) but lost to Moravian (17-7).

Both programs have turned their fortunes around in recent years. Muhlenberg won a total of four games from 1994 to 1997, but is 27-14 since then and needs one win to tie the school record for victories in a four-year span. King’s revived its football program in 1993 after a 29-year hiatus and could do no better than 3-7 in its first six years, but has gone 5-5, 7-4 and 7-3 since.

The two teams have met once previously in football, a 6-0 King’s win in 1962.

The other ECAC Championship games are Curry at Worcester State (Northeast), Hartwick at Union (Northwest) and Albright at Wesley (Southwest).