Box Score

The Muhlenberg baseball team kept coming back after falling behind early but could not catch up and lost at home to Swarthmore, 11-8.

With six games remaining in the regular season, the Mules (15-17, 6-6) are in a three-way tie for fourth place in the Centennial Conference.

After junior John Icaza singled in a run in the bottom of the first, Swarthmore took advantage of Muhlenberg errors to score six runs in the top of the second. The Mules got three of the runs back in the bottom of the inning to close to within 6-4.

The Garnet (20-14, 4-8) re-established their five-run lead with two runs in the fourth and one in the fifth. Again the Mules came back. Junior Robbie Hopes singled in two runs in the bottom of the fifth, and another run came in on a throwing error in the sixth to make it 9-7.

Freshman Chris Grillo hit a sacrifice fly in the eighth to bring in classmate Stephen Koester, who reached home safely with a leap over the Swarthmore catcher to cut the deficit to one run.

After the Garnet scored twice in the top of the ninth, Muhlenberg got the tying run to the plate in its last at-bat, but the game ended there.

Grillo, Icaza, Hopes and Koester had two hits apiece for the Mules, with Koester scoring three runs. Senior Andrew Oakes (pictured above) and sophomore Austin Disher combined to throw two scoreless innings in long relief to give Muhlenberg a chance to come back.