DiMaio, in her only season with the Mules, was the team’s leading scorer with nine goals.

Playing against the 11th-ranked team in Division III, the last thing the Muhlenberg women’s soccer team wanted to do was give up an early goal.

But that is exactly what happened. Johns Hopkins scored just 17 seconds into the game and went on to a 3-1 win in the semifinals of the Centennial Conference playoffs.

The result ended a magical nine-game run that took the Mules (13-6) from the bottom half of the CC standings to a berth in the semifinals.

Muhlenberg settled down after the early goal and played well for the rest of the first half, going into the locker room still down, 1-0. Any good feelings the Mules had about their play were quickly erased when the Blue Jays (16-2) struck again in the first minute of the second half, scoring 27 seconds in.

After a third Hopkins goal, the Mules averted a shutout when senior Mallory DiMaio converted a cross from classmate Kristen Cioeta with 5:12 left.

Cioeta was one of eight seniors who played for Muhlenberg the last four years, helping the Mules to a 43-26-6 record and three trips to the CC playoffs.

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