Senior Mitchell Reading won a Sportsmanship Award and classmate Jeff Kraft finished second in the top singles flight on the second day of the Philadelphia Area Team Tennis Tournament.

The four participating teams and their coaches voted on a Sportsmanship Award for each of the three singles flights. Reading shared the honor with Haverford’s Matt Stein for the 3/4 flight. Reading finished seventh in the flight, beating teammate Adam Nodiff in his third match.

In the 1/2 flight, Kraft reached the championship final before falling in straight sets to the top player from The College of New Jersey. Kraft needed a third-set supertiebreaker to win his semifinal contest against the Haverford player who defeated him at last year’s Centennial Conference championships.

Click here for Muhlenberg results.

The Mules lost to the Green Terror by the same 2-1 score in their CC opener last year, but rebounded to win the rest of their league games en route to their third CC championship.

“We didn’t want that to happen again,” said senior midfielder Kimberly Klicka. “We wanted to start this year off on a high note and keep it there as long as possible.”

In contrast to the 2003 game, in which all the scoring took place in the first half, all three goals this time came in the second 45 minutes. After an evenly played first half, Muhlenberg (4-2, 1-0) controlled the action early in the second half.

“We recognized that they weren’t marking us in the middle,”

After scoring one goal in the first 60 games of her career, Macomber has two in the last three.

said Klicka of the Mules’ halftime adjustments. “So [fellow center midfielder] Amy [Schmidt] and I tried to play off each other more.”

The strategy worked. Muhlenberg’s first goal was set up when Schmidt, alone in the middle, fired a long shot that was deflected. The Green Terror (3-2, 0-1) goalie mistakenly let the ball roll over the end line, giving the Mules a corner kick. After the kick was knocked around the box, it came to the feet of sophomore Elana Rabinowitz, who struck the ball into the top of the net from close in for her first career goal.

Five minutes later, senior Katie Macomber relentlessly pestered a McDaniel defender to win a ball in the center of the field. She then fired a shot inside the right post to give Muhlenberg a 2-0 lead.

The Green Terror scored with just under 10 minutes left to make it a one-goal game, but the Mules held on to extend their CC regular-season home winning streak to 25.

Click here for box score.