Freshman Rachel Drosdick leads the heptathlon after the first day of the Centennial Conference Championships at Swarthmore.

Drosdick has 2,179 points to lead the second-place McDaniel athlete by 16 and the Franklin & Marshall competitor in third by 32.

Two Mules are in position to score after the first day of the decathlon. Junior Harry Kegelman is fourth with 2,448 points, and senior Alex Johansen is seventh with 2,419. Kegelman is 60 points out of third place.

DeLucia is 4-2 with a 0.90 ERA in CC playoff games.

The Mules (20-10, 10-6), who face Ursinus (29-7-1, 15-1) at noon on Saturday, have been here before, and they are ready to win again.

Muhlenberg entered the 2003 tournament seeded fourth and took down No. 1 seed McDaniel in its first game, then took two of three from Gettysburg to win its third CC title in four years.

The same four teams are back in 2004 for the fourth straight year. McDaniel (24-9, 12-4) won a tiebreaker with Gettysburg (22-11, 12-4) to earn the second seed and will face the Bullets at 10 a.m. at Ursinus’ Snell Field (click here for directions). The losers of the first two games will play at 2:00 and the winners at 4:00, with the winners of those games surviving to play Sunday.

Below is a preview from senior shortstop Becki Toth.

How do you feel about how the season has gone so far?
We ended our regular season a lot stronger than we started out. We lost games against Dickinson and F&M that are usually solid wins for us. We messed up by losing those two games, and then we had to worry and battle and struggle. The season has been great playing with my seniors for the last time, but it’s also been a struggle because we never do anything easy.

What do you remember about the first doubleheader at Ursinus?
We didn’t hit as well as we should have against their pitcher Erin Skinner, and that’s what we have to do this time because we’re going to see her again. In the second game, we stayed up after our first loss, battled our way back and had the game all wrapped up. Then we let them have it. I think we can definitely beat them. We just need to be on top of our game, and in that doubleheader we weren’t.

What will be the key for Muhlenberg to win?
The key will be coming out with our bats swinging, being extremely aggressive. I think that’s what got us last time; we weren’t as aggressive as we should have been. We got into a lot of two-strike situations and either popped the ball up or struck out.

How are playoff games different from regular-season games?
The atmosphere is a lot different. Being at the Centennial Conference championships is a lot different that being at any doubleheader. You naturally feel more intense in that situation and there’s more pressure.

Does wanting to repeat and, for your class, take three out of four championships, motivate the team?
Absolutely. As Danielle DeLucia would say, we’re right where we want to be: the underdogs. We always go in as a low seed and two years out of three we’ve pulled it out. I’m confident that we can do it again.