baseball win is total staff effort

Women’s Tennis Goes All Out for Win Tennis is a game with a lot of back-and-forth action, but this was a little different. The Muhlenberg women's tennis match against Franklin & Marshall featured back-and-forth action not only on the courts, but also on the Muhlenberg campus. The teams started playing outdoors, but a rain shower about an hour into the match forced them to head inside. The indoor courts were set up and ready for play when the passing shower passed by and the sun came back out. So did the players, who returned to the outdoor courts to complete the match. The Mules won 8-1, picking up their second Centennial Conference win in as many days. They can finish at .500 in the CC with a win at Gettysburg on Saturday. F&M only brought five players, so Muhlenberg won by forfeit at No. 3 doubles and No. 6 singles. The Mules' six wins in contested matches came from their four juniors captains, Caitie Druker, Sara Sutker, Danielle Winston and Lindsay Schmidt. Both Druker (second set) and Sutker (first set) won a set at love, and Winston and Schmidt teamed up for an 8-0 shutout at No. 2 doubles. Click here for box score.

On Earth Day 2010, the Muhlenberg baseball team made a concerted effort not to deplete its most important natural resource: its pitching staff.

The Mules used eight different pitchers, none of whom faced more

Junior Chris Harper, the second of the eight pitchers, tossed a scoreless second inning to earn his second win of the season.

than eight batters, and the octet allowed just eight hits in a 14-4 win against Susquehanna.

In order to have its entire staff available for Saturday's crucial Centennial Conference doubleheader against Washington, Muhlenberg did not want to overextend any of its arms in the non-CC game. The parade of pitchers worked perfectly against the Crusaders (14-16), who came in with a .344 team batting average.

The pitchers got plenty of early support from the hitters, who scored 11 runs on 13 hits in the first three innings. The Mules (15-17) had runners on the corners with nobody out in the first but could not score. They faced another potential wasted opportunity in the second, when a ground ball back to the pitcher kept runners on second and third with two out. But junior Jeff Puklin came through with a big hit, lining a single to right to drive in the first two runs of the game.

That opened the floodgates. Hits by the next two batters, combined with two Susquehanna errors, brought home three more runs.

In the third, Muhlenberg had seven straight batters reach base by hit, walk or hit by pitch as part of a six-run inning. Junior Eli Branzburg, making his first career start in left field, hit a two-run single, and junior Joseph DiCecilia capped the rally with a two-run triple.

The Mules added a single run in the fourth and two more in the sixth, with Puklin contributing an RBI single in each frame. He finished 3-for-4 with four RBI.

Three other players had three-hit games, helping Muhlenberg to a 21-hit output. Senior Dan Fisher played only the first three innings but went 3-for-3 with two runs scored and two stolen bases. He moved to within two runs scored of tying the school record of 137 in acareer.

Sophomore Jesse Nusbaum was 3-for-4 with three runs scored, and freshman John Muha went 3-for-6 with an RBI double.

Although he had his string of reaching base in 11 straight plate appearances snapped, DiCecilia closed to within two of the school record for hits in a season with his triple.
Click here for line score.
Click here for complete stats.