The 2026 Muhlenberg softball team logged one of the greatest seasons in college athletic history, winning 36 games and coming within one win of advancing to the Division III finals.
But what made the Mules so special?
Was it their dominant pitching? No, although there was plenty of that, resulting in threemembers of the staff earning All-Centennial Conference honors.
Was it their “small ball” offense that emphasized speed over power? No, even though the team shattered the school record for stolen bases in a season and repeatedly frustrated opponents by causing chaos on the basepaths.
Was it their success in the classroom? No, although four team members finished the year with perfect 4.0 GPAs and one of them was a valedictorian of the Class of 2026.
The Mules’ secret sauce revealed itself not on their beautiful new on-campus home field, nor on fields in Salisbury, Maryland; Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; Medford, Massachusetts; or Angola, Indiana — though there were big wins at all those sites — but, of all places, at the Towpath Service Plaza off I-80 in Broadview Heights, Ohio.
Proud of what they had accomplished and eager to return home after spending more than 20 hours on the bus together the previous two weeks, the Mules stopped for a quick break on their way back from the NCAA super regional at Trine University. The team was mostly back on the bus and ready to resume its long journey when one of the last players to board walked in visibly upset because she had lost one of her earrings.
So the team filed off the bus again, went back into the service plaza, and helped look for the missing earring.
Kineta Bradley ’29
“It wasn’t even a question if we were going to at least try to support our teammate,” says Kineta Bradley ’29. “It’s just who we are.”
That togetherness manifested itself on the field as well as off. And just as it might have surprised fellow travelers to see 29 college softball players scouring the floor of the Towpath Service Plaza on that late Saturday afternoon, so too did it surprise the Division III softball world to see Muhlenberg advance as far as it did.
The Mules had a decent season in 2025 but were far from making an impact on the national stage, finishing at 21-20. They hadn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 2022 and hadn’t won multiple NCAA Tournament games since 2003.
But with an influx of young talent and a common sense of purpose, Muhlenberg went 36-13 (breaking the record for wins in any sport, set by the 2013 softball team that finished 31-9-1), winning an NCAA regional for the first time in program history, and pushing defending national champion Trine to the brink.
“It was one of the best things I’ve ever experienced in my life, and I could not be more grateful to my coaches [and] teammates,” says Scooter Hulsen ’26.
“[This season] was one of the best things I’ve ever experienced in my life, and I could not be more grateful to my coaches [and] teammates.”
—Scooter Hulsen ’26
Mudita
Bradley, one of 12 newcomers on Muhlenberg’s 2026 roster, remembers the first time she got to meet her new teammates.
It was the day before classes started for the fall 2025 semester, and the team sat in a circle on the outfield grass of its long-awaited home field. Like most of her teammates, Bradley had never been on a softball team that large — 30 players. And she admitted that there was plenty of uncertainty at the start.
“There was a lot up in the air. We weren’t exactly sure how this would look,” she recalls. “But I think at the end of the day, it was good for us. It was very clear from the beginning that we wanted to be the team that was united. No matter who was playing and who wasn’t playing, that didn’t matter. We all were happy for each other and we all supported each other.”
That sentiment echoes the concept of “mudita,” a Sanskrit word that is at the core of the philosophy espoused by Head Coach Sarah Leavenworth. It means taking pleasure in the success of others.
“We were able to go so far because we were just happy for each other, and we were happy to experience it together no matter what your role was on the team.”
—Josie Krieman ’27
“[Leavenworth] really harps on that,” notes Josie Krieman ’27. “We were able to go so far because we were just happy for each other, and we were happy to experience it together no matter what your role was on the team.”
On a softball team of 30 players, where only 10 are in the starting lineup for any given game, the roles will vary widely. Some players are on the field almost all the time, others hardly at all.
Keeping that latter group on board and invested in the program was the challenge facing Leavenworth and her coaching staff, which included assistants Maddisen Bieber, Jean Buskirk, and Lee Maulorico. And they did it so well that they were named coaching staff of the year by the Centennial Conference, as well as regional coaching staff of the year by the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA).
Coaching staff (left to right) Maddisen Bieber, Lee Maulorico, Jean Buskirk, and Sarah Leavenworth
“[Leavenworth] made it very clear throughout the season that no matter if you were on the field or off the field, everyone had a role, and no matter what the role was, it was valued,” says Ellie Ward ’28.
Ward epitomized that approach. Even though she appeared in only two games all season, coming to the plate twice and playing two innings in the field, she was considered a team leader, contributing behind the scenes. Ward did many of the “little things” — although on a team that emphasizes attention to detail, there were no little things, only steps to achieving big things.
Whether it was tending to the snack bins and equipment, or warming up pitchers in the bullpen, or keeping the energy up in the dugout, Ward was valued by her teammates for her role and was the team’s nominee to the Centennial Conference Sportsmanship Team.
“Ellie was always very in tune with everybody else and in tune with the game itself,” says Krieman. “It was really awesome to see her really take her position in stride. She’s a great teammate.”
“[Leavenworth] made it very clear throughout the season that no matter if you were on the field or off the field, everyone had a role, and no matter what the role was, it was valued.”
—Ellie Ward ’28
Ellie Ward ’28
Buying In, and Pivoting
It’s one thing for the head coach to harp on mudita. It’s quite another for the members of such a large group to put it into action.
“Everyone seemed more bought into the mission,” says Hulsen, one of three seniors on the team, in comparing this season to her first three. “In years past, there was always drama; with a group of 30 girls on a team, there’s going to be drama. But this year there was none of that.”
“Our seniors and upperclassmen did a really great job of welcoming in the freshmen,” says Bradley. “There could be a divide between the younger girls and the older girls, but their leadership was what led us to our success. They created the team culture that we all bought into and what led us to be so successful.”
Not only was the team successful, but so too were the newcomers. How successful? One, pitcher Eden Clark ’29, was the Centennial Conference rookie of the year. Another one, shortstop Josie Hoffacker ’29, was named NFCA Region 5 freshman of the year. And yet another one, outfielder Sofia Gallahue ’29, earned a spot on the all-region team and came within three of the school record for hits in a season.
Krieman, in her first year with the program after transferring from Rosemont College, was the Centennial Conference scholar-athlete of the year.
The team celebrates after beating DeSales
Bradley settled in as the starting catcher and was one of four freshmen in the everyday lineup, along with Hoffacker at shortstop, Gallahue in right field, and Izzy Wilmot ’29 at third base.
Armed with this new talent, what was the mission that everyone bought into? Winning the Centennial Conference championship. The Mules won in 2022, the year before the Class of 2026 arrived, but had come up short in the previous three years.
As it turned out, they came up short again. After coming from behind in the final innings to secure a home playoff game with a doubleheader split at Gettysburg, the Mules hosted the Bullets six days later in the first on-campus playoff game in program history. Muhlenberg won that game 3-0 behind the four-hit pitching of Clark, but managed only one run in the next two games and was eliminated a game shy of the championship round.
The team responded just as it had all season — by staying united. A strong out-of-conference schedule pegged the Mules as a solid candidate for a bid to the NCAA Tournament, and after a week of scoreboard-watching, they easily earned one of the 22 at-large berths and a trip to Tufts University for one of 16 regionals.
“We were all down when we lost to Haverford [in the Centennial playoffs],” says Ward. “But then Coach came out and said, ‘This was our goal, but now we’re past that and now we have a new goal.’ And just thinking about the chance that we had to get a bid, we all just came together. We were resilient throughout the whole season, and I think it was a season of growth, honestly.”
The team’s legacy was about to grow by leaps and bounds.
Sweetness in the Circle
“Just like cream ‘n’ sugar.”
That was the response of Krieman when asked how to pronounce her name at the softball team’s photo day. And she put together a sweet season in her Mule debut.
She, and the rest of the pitching staff, could really make batters cry, man.
Josie Krieman ’27
Krieman (second team), Clark (first team), and Morgan Bobrowski ’28 (second team) all made the All-Centennial Conference team. Clark went 16-6 with a 2.30 ERA, ranking 18th in Division III with 149 strikeouts. Both she and Bobrowski were in the top 20 in the country in fewest hits allowed.
The Mules set a school record with 11 shutouts, including a no-hitter by Clark against McDaniel and a five-hitter by Krieman at Ursinus in her first start after Bobrowski, who was named CC pitcher of the week three times in a four-week span, had her season cut short by injury.
“We were all really bummed for Morgan because she was having a spectacular campaign,” says Krieman. “But for me to go in for Morgan, I just decided that I can’t let down the team. Everybody has a role and now my role is to come in and pitch these games.”
“I was just really excited to help my team out. They work so hard for me, and I know they have my back, so to be able to give that back to them is very rewarding to me.”
—Josie Krieman ’27
Krieman got the ball for the second and third games of the regional at Tufts, picking up wins in both to earn a spot on the regional all-tournament team. She pitched a five-hitter with no earned runs allowed against Tufts, at the time ranked 16th in Division III, in the winner’s bracket final.
Krieman punctuated several of the outs she recorded, especially the final one, with hearty yells, and after the game, she was asked why she showed such emotion.
“I was just really excited to help my team out,” she says. “They work so hard for me, and I know they have my back, so to be able to give that back to them is very rewarding to me.”
Small Ball
When Hulsen was in the third grade, her softball team included several players named Sarah, so her coach told her she needed a nickname. Harkening back to her early days of movement as a toddler, her parents suggested “Scooter,” and it stuck.
Hulsen wore the name proudly, and even wore part of it on her back. Her number, 00, represented the two Os in Scooter.
Put a one in front of those two zeroes, and you get the number of runs batted in Hulsen had in her Muhlenberg career — just the second player in program history to reach the century mark.
Halve that double-zero, and you get the number of home runs Hulsen hit as a senior. And that tied her for the team lead.
Scooter Hulsen ’26
That’s right: Muhlenberg played 49 games, won 36 of them, was ranked 15th in the final Division III poll … and did not hit a single home run all season.
By way of comparison, Trine — the team the Mules faced in the super regional — led Division III with 80 home runs. Division I UCLA paced all of NCAA softball with a season total of 209 homers.
Only six other NCAA softball teams went the entire 2026 season without hitting a home run, and they combined to win 31 games. Muhlenberg hadn’t gone a whole season homerless since 1998.
“We would like to have home run hitters — I don’t exclude them from our program,” Leavenworth said with a smile after the Mules worked their “death by a thousand cuts” magic to perfection against Trine in the first game of the super regional. “And we have people that have power, but we just work really hard, especially inside in the off-season, to barrel up the ball, put the ball on the ground, and run.”
And run they did. Muhlenberg stole 140 bases to rank 14th in Division III and smash the old school record of 107. The Mules stole at least eight bases in a game three times during the season, after doing so only twice in the first 45 years of their existence.
Hoffacker (31) and Ava Storlazzi ’28 (27) were two of only nine players in Division III to steal more than 25 bases without getting caught, while Hailey Godin ’28 added 30 swipes.
The offensive style was perfect for such a close-knit team, because instead of leaning on one or two players to hit home runs, it relied on players up and down the lineup to get on base, move each other over or take pitches so their teammates could steal, and drive each other in.
“We’re not big girls,” says Hulsen, whose bases-loaded single in the seventh brought in the winning run of the Mules’ NCAA opener against Middlebury. “We’re just small, speedy players that try to get on base and move around the bases as strategically as possible. I think that’s something we used to our advantage this year for sure. It’s really cool that we were able to make it so far with a team like that.”
Of course, home runs aren’t the only measure of power. A run-scoring triple by Lillie Teague ’27 was the big hit in a 3-1 win against Tufts in the second game of the regional, and Godin’s three-bagger the next day against Middlebury keyed a 7-5 win that gave the Mules the regional championship and a trip to Indiana for the super regional.
“We’re not big girls. We’re just small, speedy players that try to get on base and move around the bases as strategically as possible. I think that’s something we used to our advantage this year for sure. It’s really cool that we were able to make it so far with a team like that.”
—Scooter Hulsen ’26
Muhlenberg won the opener of the series at Trine, scoring seven runs in the final two innings to come from behind for an 8-2 win. The Mules finished the game with 15 hits — all singles.
And even when they weren’t running wild around the bases, the Mules were putting pressure on opposing defenses. Muhlenberg’s final two runs in the first game of the Trine series were driven in by Peri Kahn ’27, who fouled off eight two-strike pitches before ending her 14-pitch at-bat with — what else — a single.
For Love of the Game
Trine’s Thunder eventually slowed down the Mules’ lightning. Needing to win once on the second day of the best-of-three super regional, Muhlenberg was beaten in the first game, setting up a winner-take-all third game.
It turned out to be a classic. Trine took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the fourth, and Bradley singled in Teague with the tying run in the top of the sixth. With the season on the line, the teams matched zeroes in the nail-biting seventh, eighth, and ninth innings. The Thunder finally ended the marathon with a two-run walkoff homer in the 10th.
Clark pitched heroically, going the full 9.2 innings, and was named Most Outstanding Pitcher of the super regional.
Trine went on to win its bracket at the finals, advancing to the national championship series for the fourth time in the last five years before falling in two games to Redlands.
“I could see the passion and the love for the sport even in one of the most tense situations that we’ve been in all season. To see that translated makes me really hopeful for the future.”
—Maddy Svenningsen ’26
The softball team’s advancement matched the farthest ever for a Muhlenberg women’s team in the NCAA Tournament. Women’s soccer (2003) and women’s basketball (2009 and 2011) also came within a win of being one of the last eight teams remaining.
“One of our biggest goals [as seniors] was to pass down our love and passion to the younger girls,” says Maddy Svenningsen ’26. “I could see the passion and the love for the sport even in one of the most tense situations that we’ve been in all season. To see that translated makes me really hopeful for the future.”
“I know most of us were happy with how far we made it, but not satisfied,” says Bradley. “We want more and we want to become greater than what we were this year and keep improving. So we’re excited for the future.”
And for the valedictory on the Mules’ incredible season, who better to turn to than Sophia Jacobson ’26, one of the valedictorians of her class?
“We didn’t think at the beginning of the season that we’d get here, so the fact that we won a regional, and we got to the 10th inning of Game 3 of a super regional … I couldn’t have asked for a better ending to my softball career.”
