faust makes pole vault history again

Baseball Drops Seventh Straight The Muhlenberg baseball team saw its losing streak reach seven games with a 3-2 setback at Ursinus. The Mules (9-18-1, 3-7) nearly pulled off a ninth-inning comeback against Bear ace Zeb Engle, who became the Centennial Conference’s all-time strikeout leader in the game. With his team trailing 3-1, sophomore Jeff Puklin led off with a single and went to third on a pinch-hit double by freshman Nick Busillo. Another pinch-hitter, freshman Will Falco, drove in a run with a sacrifice fly, but the last two batters made out. Muhlenberg’s first run scored on three straight two-out singles in the third, the last by junior Eric Pomroy. Click here for line score. Click here for complete stats.

Both literally and figuratively, junior Alex Faust of the Muhlenberg women’s track and field team keeps raising the bar in the pole vault.

For the second straight week, Faust broke her own school and Centennial Conference record in the vault, this time at the Bucknell Outdoor Classic. Faust was one of 10 vaulters (seven from Division I and three from Division III) invited to compete in a special competition Friday night. She finished third, behind two athletes from Penn State, clearing 12-3½ to surpass the mark of 12-0 she set last week. Since the meet used Division I standards, the bar moved up to 12-7½ rather than 12-6½, which is the Division III automatic qualifying height. Faust had three good attempts at 12-7½, narrowly missing a successful vault.

Two other Muhlenberg athletes were invited to participate in “elite” competitions. Senior David Chorney ran in the invitational 5,000 meters, breaking the school record by 14 seconds to finish in 14:48.02. He missed the NCAA provisional mark of 14:45.00 by three seconds. And junior Jennifer Lynch ran a personal best 4:41.95 in the invitational 1,500 meters, about three seconds off the provisional standard of 4:39.00. She finished second in her heat and 12th overall out of 38 invited runners.