Two teams with a history of close games played two more when the softball teams from Muhlenberg and McDaniel finally played their twice-postponed doubleheader. The Green Terror

With Ruhling backing up, Roth catches a popup for the final out of the second game.

took the first game, 2-1, and the Mules came back to capture the nightcap, 1-0.

The split kept the two Centennial Conference playoff hopefuls right where they were in the standings. Muhlenberg (16-16, 8-4) is in third place with its four remaining games against the two teams (Ursinus and Haverford) it trails. McDaniel (18-18, 5-7) is in sixth place.

Eleven of the last 17 meetings between the two squads have been decided by one run and/or in extra innings.

The Mules rode the five-hit pitching of sophomore Katie Vecchione to the Game 2 win.

MEN’S GOLF STAYS 13th; MEN’S TENNIS ENDS SEASON • The Muhlenberg men’s golf team finished 13th at Allegheny’s Guy W. Kuhn Invitational. The Mules improved their score by eight strokes on the second day of the tournament but could not move up in the standings. Freshman Bill Snow and sophomore Garrett Carpenter each carded a 77 in the final round. Click here for box score. • The injury-plagued Muhlenberg men’s tennis team was shut out by Gettysburg, 7-0, in its season finale. Click here for box score.

Vecchione struck out five and walked none in pitching her second consecutive shutout. She was nearly spotless after allowing three first-inning singles, facing one batter over the minimum over the final six frames.

Muhlenberg, which needed extra innings to score the lone run in Vecchione’s shutout of Washington, this time broke through in the fifth inning. Lindsay Ruhling, one of three Mule seniors honored between games, led off with a double to deep right. She was sacrificed to third and remained there when the next batter struck out.

The next batter, junior Hilary Marinchak, hit the first pitch up the middle to drive in Ruhling. In her previous at-bat, Marinchak had fallen into an 0-2 hole, but fouled off six pitches in drawing a walk.

“That helped a lot,” she admitted. “I felt comfortable at the plate after seeing so many pitches. My first at-bat, she was jamming me and I struck out. I just felt it was the time to get ahead. She came in with the first pitch and I hit it.”

Muhlenberg needed the win in the second game after allowing an unearned run on three errors in the top of the seventh to drop the opener. The Green Terror took a 1-0 lead in the second, but the Mules tied the score in the fourth when freshman Samantha Crist led off with a bunt single and scored on a two-out hit by junior Tina Roth.

Click here for line scores.