The Muhlenberg women’s tennis team sent four players – three freshman and a sophomore – to the ITA Southeast Regional, hosted by Mary Washington, and all four players and both doubles teams won a match.

Freshman Jenn Powell won her first-round singles match in three sets against a player from Swarthmore. Powell was then eliminated by the fifth seed.

Fellow freshman Carly Rotfeld dropped a match to one of Johns Hopkins’ top players before rebounding to defeat an Elizabethtown opponent in the first round of consolations.

As a doubles team, Rotfeld and Powell reached the consolation quarterfinals by topping a duo from Methodist.

In the “Blue” singles draw, sophomore Jacquelyn Magner and freshman Maddy Goldfarb both won their first-round matches. The pair also teamed up for a first-round win in the “Blue” doubles draw.

Click here for Muhlenberg results.
Click here for the tournament site.

more on the field hockey win against McDaniel

It was a weekend of “the big 2-0” for Nikki Rhoads.

On Friday, the sophomore on the Muhlenberg field hockey team turned 20. On Saturday, she turned a penalty corner into the first goal of the Mules’ 2-0 win against McDaniel.

“It’s the best birthday present I’ve ever gotten,” she joked.

By defeating McDaniel for the first time since 2001, Muhlenberg is 1-0 in the Centennial

Rhoads had a pre-birthday assist, also on a penalty corner, in Wednesday’s 1-0 win against Drew.

Conference for the first time since 1996. The Mules’ nine remaining games are all CC contests, and they play their next three on the road, beginning Tuesday at Haverford.

“It’s great to get our momentum going into conference play,” said Rhoads of the Mules, who snapped a three-game losing skid with two shutout wins this week. “We were picked only eighth out of 11 teams [in the preseason poll]. We feel we deserve to be much higher and we want to prove them wrong.”

Rhoads broke the ice on a back-and-forth, typically tight game between Muhlenberg and McDaniel midway through the second half, taking a short pass from Lauren Rutt off a penalty corner and rifling a shot into the cage for her first career goal. On their next corner, the Mules scored again, this time with senior Steph Light doing the honors.

Muhlenberg nearly made it three in a row on corners a few minutes later, narrowly missing a tipin at the post.

“We struggled with corners at the beginning of the season,” commented Rhoads. “But we focus on them every day in practice and it is really starting to click.”

Rhoads and Light became the eighth and ninth Muhlenberg players to score goals this season. The Mules haven’t had that many different goal-scorers since 2000.