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The UMD softball team has spent four seasons getting a boost from Megan Mullen, a standout pitcher from Hermantown. When she’s not pitching, Mullen spends her time giving the Bulldogs a boost with her bat.
So it was on Senior Day, a blustery afternoon a week ago at Malosky Stadium, where the softball diamond was set up on the football field’s artificial turf. The opponent was Minnesota State-Moorhead for a doubleheader, and it worked out perfectly for Mullen and second baseman Brooke Nueroth, the only two seniors on the squad.
Neuroth smacked a home run to break the 0-0 start, which became more impressive with the news that it was her first collegiate home run. Moorhead tied the game 2-2 going into the last of the seventh, when Mullen came up and socked a long blast over the center field fence for a walk-off 2-run home run and a 4-2 victory. Both seniors homer, and the Bulldogs won.
The second game was even bigger for Mullen, who had only pitched one earlier game after elbow surgery in February, and coach Jen Banford sent her out to start. She walked a few, driving in a couple of Moorhead runs, before she found her rhythm and struck out the side in the third. UMD had to rally to win that game, too, and Mullen’s opposite-field double drove in the go-ahead run. Sophomore Cayli Sadler, who has pitched very well for the Bulldogs in Mullen’s absence, relieved her and got the victory in both games.
Hitting the road last weekend, UMD split at Concordia, and at MSU-Mankato, to finish the regular season and hurtle into the Northern Sun tournament this week at Sioux Falls, where the Bulldogs open double-elimination play against Augustana. Having Mullen capable of joining Sadler and bolstering the Bulldog pitching staff should aid them in trying to rise from No. 6 seed.
Meanwhile, in Duluth, top-seeded St. Scholastica is keeping fingers crossed for the chance of rain, snow, sleet and whatever lifting by the weekend, to facilitate the UMAC softball tournament, which is scheduled at St. Scholastica’s Kenwood Avenue field.

Spring Football Weather

How they play is always more important than the final result when spring football scrimmages are conducted. UMD’s Maroons beat the White team when Drew Bauer, who just completed a stellar freshman season at quarterback, hooked up with Nick Larson for a 10-yard touchdown pass and a 17-14 edge.
The game drew over 1,000 spectators to a drizzly Malosky Stadium, lured partly, perhaps, by the offer of free food from Texas Roadhouse and an assortment of offerings from players’ parents. Special rules prevented hitting the quarterbacks, Brees and Justin Laureys, but there was plenty of passing and running to make the burgers and pulled pork even more of an attraction.