The Muhlenberg men's soccer team scored two first-half goals and held on for a 2-1 win at 19th-ranked Franklin & Marshall in a Centennial Conference semifinal.

The result marked the third straight year that the Mules (12-3-5) defeated a nationally ranked F&M team on the road in the semifinals, and for the third straight year, they will face Johns Hopkins in the championship game. The top-seeded Blue Jays advanced to their third straight final with a 3-0 win against Dickinson. 

The title game will be played on Sunday at 3:00. Each of the last two years, the road team has returned home with the trophy. 

Muhlenberg struck early, barely five minutes into the game, when junior Sim Dorsey headed in a long throw from sophomore Sam Roberts for his fourth goal of the season.

The Mules doubled their lead with 16:01 left in the half when Dorsey executed a give and go with sophomore Gabe Blikshteyn, who dribbled past the attempted tackle of a Diplomat player in the box and slotted the ball past the charging goalie for his third goal of the season.

The Diplomats (9-2-7) turned up the heat after the second goal. Muhlenberg junior Ben Mulford made back-to-back point-blank saves, one with his hands and one with his feet, late in the first half. 

Mulford (pictured above) made consecutive difficult stops again early in the second half, and F&M struck a penalty kick wide midway through the period.

The Diplomats finally scored a goal with 13:13 remaining, snapping the Mules' shutout streak at more than 450 minutes, and took six more shots the rest of the game. Mulford saved two of them, including a leaping stop of a drive with fewer than six minutes remaining, to preserve the lead. 

Mulford finished with 9 saves to improve to 6-2-2 for his career in postseason games.

The win also enhanced the Mules' chances of earning an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament should they not capture the title on Sunday. They are now 2-1-1 against teams ranked higher than them in the NCAA Power Index.