softball swaps shutouts

Baseball Rally Comes Up Short The Muhlenberg baseball team scored six runs against one of last year’s top pitching teams, but in the end it was not enough. The Mules fell, 9-6, to Oneonta State, which was fourth in Division III in strikeouts per nine innings, sixth in earned-run average and seventh in hits allowed per nine innings in 2009. The Red Dragons (4-0) took an early 2-0 lead and then blew the game open with a four-run fourth. The Mules (3-2) began to chip away immediately by loading the bases to start the bottom of the fourth. But Muhlenberg couldn’t get a big inning out of it, scoring only two runs on back-to-back fielder’s choices by juniors Bobby Spindler and Clint Lynch. With the Mules trailing 7-2, Spindler started a big sixth-inning rally with a one-out walk. A hit-by-pitch and single with two outs loaded the bases again, and senior Dan Fisher worked the count for an RBI walk. Freshman Joseph Vila also took a run-scoring base on balls, and senior Eric Pomroy followed with a two-RBI single, cutting the deficit to one. But Oneonta State held Muhlenberg in check the rest of way, allowing one single and three free passes but no runs. The Red Dragons tacked on two insurance runs in the top of the eighth. Fisher reached base four times in the leadoff spot, smacking two base hits and drawing two walks. Click here for line score. Click here for complete stats.

The Muhlenberg softball team traded a pair of shutouts and split on its third day of competition in Florida.

Junior Ashley Brewer pitched her second shutout in three starts, a three-hitter, in a five-inning 8-0 defeat of Lesley in the second game. The Mules (2-3) were blanked by Elizabethtown in the first game, 7-0.

Junior Alyssa Epstein went 3-for-3 vs. Elizabethtown and singled and scored in the Lesley game.

Brewer recorded 12 of the 15 outs herself either by strikeout (seven with no walks) or ground ball back to her. Both times Lesley got a runner in scoring position, in the second and third innings, Brewer ended the threats with back-to-back strikeouts.

Brewer singled up the middle in the bottom of the first, stole second and followed freshman Jessica Costa home on sophomore Brittany Blohm’s two-run single. Freshman Elizabeth Sullivan brought in Blohm with a two-out single.

Senior Jenna Van Waalwijk extended the lead to 4-0 with a two-out RBI single in the third, and Muhlenberg put the game away with four in the fourth – an inning that started when junior Jess Kasza reached first on a wild pitch after striking out. It was the second time in five games that the Mules started a rally on a third strike that couldn’t be handled.
Click here for line scores.
Click for complete stats: Elizabethtown | Lesley