KISSIMMEE, Fla. – The Thiel College softball team lost a pair of games Tuesday during play in The Spring Games. The Tomcats lost to the Muhlenberg Mules (8-3) and the Rhodes Lynx (10-3).
 
Muhlenberg scored four runs in the top of the second of the first game. Thiel got on the scoreboard in the bottom of the third when Chase Gifford (Buffalo, N.Y./City Honors School) singled to right field to score Leah Woytek (Hillsville, Pa./Mohawk). The Tomcats got within a run (4-3) in the fifth on RBIs by Woytek and Jessica Kelley (Freeport, Pa./Freeport).
 
The Mules put the game out of reach with a four-run effort in the seventh.
 
Kelley led the Tomcats at the dish with two hits and an RBI.
 
Madison Fullmer (Elyria, Ohio/Elyria) allowed four runs, none of which were earned, on 10 hits in 5 1/3 innings.
 
Thiel opened scoring against Rhodes, ranked 20^th in the most recent National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) poll, with a run in the top of the first. Rhodes came back with two runs in the bottom of the first.
 
Bailey Hoover (Smock, Pa./Uniontown) tied up the game for the Tomcats (2-2) with an RBI-single in the top of the second. Rhodes went back on top (3-2) in the bottom of the second and scored six more runs over the third and fourth innings.
 
Hoover notched her second RBI of the game in the fourth on a single to left field, but Rhodes kept Thiel off the scoreboard the rest of the way en route to the 10-3 win.
 
Hoover, Woytek and Fullmer each recorded two hits in the second game.
 
Kelley allowed five earned runs on 13 hits in 5 1/3 innings. She also struck out two batters.
 
The Tomcats will continue play in The Spring Games Thursday when they face Trine (10 a.m.) and Otterbein (12:15 p.m.).