In a match which lasted more than five hours, Middlebury saw its hopes of winning a third-straight NESCAC Men's Tennis Championship come up short, as the team fell to by a 5-4 score to fourth-seeded Bowdoin in Sunday's back-and-forth title match at the Lansing Chapman Rink hosted by Williams. The Polar Bears (18-4) receive the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament when the selections are announced on Monday, while the Panthers (18-3) will likely earn an at-large bid.

Middlebury took a 2-1 lead after doubles play. Lubomir Cuba and William de Quant topped Luke Tercek and Grant Urken by an 8-4 score at No. 1 to start things off. The other two matches required tiebreakers to decide a winner. Timo van der Geest and Peter Martin edged Gil Roddy and Justin Patel by a 9-8 (2) tally at No. 3 for a 2-0 Panther lead. Kyle Wolfe and Jerry Jiang put the Polar Bears on the scoreboard with a narrow 9-8 (5) victory over Hamid Derbani and Kyle Schlanger in the No. 2 slot.

Bowdoin quickly tied the match at 2-2 in singles play, as Justin Patel edged Allen Jackson at No. 6 by scores of 6-3, 6-3. The Polar Bears took the lead when Roddy recorded a 6-0, 7-6 (3) victory over van der Geest in the fifth flight, and increased their advantage to 4-2 when Jiang earned a hard-fought 6-1, 2-6, 6-2 win over Schlanger at No. 4.

Derbani started a Panther comeback with a straight-set triumph in the third flight over Wolfe (7-5, 6-4). Cuba knotted the match at 4-4 with a 7-6 (4), 6-1 victory atop the lineup over Tercek.

In the decisive match, Urken won the first set by a 6-4 score over de Quant at No. 2, but the Panther leveled the score with a 6-3 win in set number two. With the score tied at 1-1 in the third, Urken rattled off five-straight games for the 6-1 win and the title for the Polar Bears.

Sunday's championship contest was a rematch of both the 2016 NESCAC Tournament final as well as the NCAA Tournament title match.