The Muhlenberg baseball team rallied from a five-run deficit to get the tying run to the plate in the ninth inning but lost at Southwestern, 5-2, in the first of a three-game series.

The Pirates (3-11) scored one in the first and four in the third but were shut down for the rest of the game by the Mule bullpen.

Junior Frank Kern (pictured above) had the best outing of his career, allowing only two hits in 3.2 innings and tying a career high with six strikeouts. Freshman Danny Jackson, making his collegiate debut, worked two scoreless innings, fanning two.

Muhlenberg (1-6) got one run back on an RBI single by junior Spencer Hobson in the fifth. 

In the ninth, sophomore Thomas Rorick led off with a single, went to second on a walk, and came around on a two-out single by sophomore Marius Haughton before the final out was recorded on a strikeout.