Long balls in the first game and small ball in the second game carried the Muhlenberg softball team to a season-opening doubleheader sweep at Kean.

The Mules won the opener, 11-3 in five innings, and came from behind to take the nightcap, 5-4. It's the first time they've begun a season with a doubleheader sweep since 2006, and the first time they've done it on the road since 1997. And it came against a Kean squad that won 29 games last season.

Muhlenberg took advantage of a two-out error in the top of the first to take a 1-0 lead in the first game. After an RBI single by graduate student Gillian Zack, junior Maddy Svenningsen lined a three-run homer over the fence in left field to make it 5-0. It was the second career home run for Svenningsen (pictured above), and it came in her first at-bat since 2023; she missed all of last season with an injury.

Senior Kaya Mahy took one deep to center field in the second inning for her 10th career home run to extend the lead to 6-0.

A two-run double by freshman Morgan Bobrowski – her first career hit – capped a four-run third, and Svenningsen notched her fourth RBI on a bunt single in the fourth.

Senior Justine Bergara gave up three runs in the second but worked out of second-and-third jams in the third and fourth to earn her 23rd career win. Freshman Abigail Kim faced the minimum three batters in the bottom of the fifth in her first career appearance to close out the win.

Runs did not come so easily early in the nightcap. The game was scoreless through three before the Mules scratched out three runs in the top of the fourth, with the final two coming on a single by freshman Ava Storlazzi.

The Cougars answered with four in the bottom of the fourth, but Muhlenberg tied it in the fifth on a leadoff single by Bobrowski and a two-out RBI double by Zack.

In the top of the sixth, with two outs and nobody on, Storlazzi beat out an infield hit to shortstop, then hustled to second when the throw trickled past first base. Mahy, the next batter, dumped a single into right field to bring in the go-ahead run.

Sophomore Samantha Fehrenbach earned the win with 3.1 innings of scoreless relief, allowing only one hit and striking out four. With a runner on first in the bottom of the seventh, a Kean batter made a bid for a walkoff home run, but freshman Hailey Godin went to the fence in left to catch the long fly ball and end the game.

Storlazzi and Zack had three hits apiece in the nightcap.