The Muhlenberg men’s tennis team extended its winning streak to six, defeating Gettysburg, 6-1, in its final home match of the season.

With the win, the Mules (8-1, 6-1) tied the program record for Centennial Conference wins in a season. If they defeat Haverford on Tuesday, they will finish with their best CC record ever.

Muhlenberg started off the match by sweeping the doubles for the fourth straight match and the sixth time this spring. The Mules are a combined 22-2 in doubles play in their eight wins.

The three seniors playing at home for the final time – Brad Scheller, Cameron Parke and Matthew Fleissig – all won at both singles and doubles, as did freshman Adam Nodiff. Scheller overcame deficits of 3-0 and 5-3 to win his second-set tiebreaker, 9-7, in a contentious No. 1 singles match.

Fleissig’s two wins gave him 70 for his career. Scheller and Parke both reached the 80-win plateau yesterday at McDaniel.

Click here for box score.

Junior Chris O’Connor pitched a two-hitter for his first career shutout in the nightcap as Muhlenberg swept a Centennial Conference doubleheader at Washington, 10-3 and 6-0.

In the opener, sophomore Gregg Burkhart reached double digits in strikeouts for the fourth time this season, fanning 11 in a six-hit effort. He has 56 strikeouts in only 40 2/3 innings.

O’Connor took a perfect game into the fifth inning, retiring the first 14 batters to face him before giving up back-to-back hits. He wound up facing three batters over the minimum, striking out five.

The Mules (15-8, 6-4) gave O’Connor all the support he would need by scoring three unearned runs in the fourth. They broke the game open with three more in the seventh. Freshman Ryan Jaxheimer had a pinch-hit RBI double in the seventh and scored on a single by freshman Brian LaRochelle, who went 3-for-4.

In the opener, the Shoremen (1-16, 1-7) led 3-1 before Muhlenberg erupted for seven runs in the sixth. Junior Joel Rush hit a two-run pinch-hit single to tie the score, and the next batter, sophomore C.J. Kessler, put the Mules ahead with another two-run single. Junior Adam Sadler added an RBI single, and sophomore Aaron Regensburg capped the uprising with one of Muhlenberg’s school-record-tying three sacrifice flies.

The Mules stole three bases in the doubleheader to tie the school record of 80 in a season.

Click here for line scores.

Junior Mackenzie Parke won 6-0 in the third set of her No. 3 singles match to lift the Muhlenberg women’s tennis team to one of its biggest wins ever, 5-4 at Salisbury.

The Sea Gulls advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament last year and were ranked 17th in Division III and fourth in the Atlantic South Region at the end of the Fall 2002 season. (The first rankings for the spring have not been released yet.)

The Mules (8-3), who extended their winning streak to eight, had to come from behind after dropping two of three doubles matches. The closeness of the two teams was demonstrated by the fact that the final score in all three doubles matches was 9-7.

Muhlenberg went ahead on singles wins by juniors Gena Ross and Sarah Niebler and sophomore Amy Schmidt. Ross’ win came against the player ranked 18th in the region. Niebler improved to 10-1 for the season with her win and moved to within one of tying the school record for career singles wins (31).

Salisbury tied the score at 4-4 win a win at No. 6. When that match finished, Parke was already up 3-0 in the third set, and she took the final three games to clinch the victory.

Click here for box score.