Two record plays lifted the Muhlenberg football team to a 33-7 season-opening win at Moravian.

The Mules, ranked 21st in both Division III preseason polls, trailed 7-0 late in the first quarter but pitched a shutout the rest of the way en route to defeating the Greyhounds for the 13th straight time.

Senior Joe Repetti won the Bianco Award as Muhlenberg's MVP after throwing for 285 yards and three touchdowns and rushing for 97 yards, narrowly missing his third career 100-yard game.

A 7-yard pass from Repetti to senior Andrew Darno and a 2-yard run by junior Amari Dunn (pictured above) accounted for the Mules' two first-half touchdowns.

Ahead 12-7 to start the third quarter, Muhlenberg turned the game around when sophomore Christopher Short returned the opening kickoff of the second half 100 yards for a touchdown. That tied the school record for longest kickoff return (100 yards is the most allowed in college football scoring), achieved three times previously, most recently by Brian Bodine in 1977.

The Mules' last kickoff return for a touchdown had been by John Washington against Juniata in 2021. Of Muhlenberg's last 13 kickoff returns for touchdowns, five have come against Moravian.

Repetti capped a 77-play drive by throwing a 1-yard TD pass to senior Timothy Buda midway through the third quarter to extend the lead to 26-7, but Moravian took the ensuing kickoff and marched all the way down to the 1-yard line. The Mules stuffed back-to-back running plays on second and third downs, however, and forced an incomplete pass on fourth down to end the threat.

On the next play, Repetti hit Christopher Ardito with a long pass around the 35-yard line, and the Muhlenberg senior outran the Greyhound defensive back for a school-record 99-yard touchdown. The previous record for longest receiving TD was 95 yards, set in 2011.

Although the Mules did not score in the fourth quarter, they put the game away with a 19-play drive that took 9:38 off the clock.

Muhlenberg outgained Moravian, 519-252. Ardito caught just one other pass, but that was enough for his third career 100-yard game; in fact, only one other player in program history (Max Kirin in 2019) recorded a 100-yard receiving game with only two catches.

Senior tight end Matt McKenna caught five passes for 88 yards, including two third-down conversions on the Mules' second touchdown drive, and junior John Runfolo had the best game of his career, with four receptions for 44 yards.

Junior Peyton Elliott led the defense with 10 tackles. Senior JJ Ramirez-Rojas recorded his first career interception late in the first half, and junior Blaze Curry notched a fourth-down sack to snuff out a Greyhound drive in the Red Zone early in the fourth quarter.