In a showdown between perennial top-10 teams, the sixth-ranked Middlebury men's tennis team posted an 8-1 victory over second-ranked Bowdoin (12-1, 3-1) on Saturday afternoon. The match was contested in the Nelson Recreational Center due to inclement weather. Middlebury (12-3, 4-1) returns to action on Sunday with two matches, as the Panthers will entertain Colby-Sawyer at 10:00 a.m. and Skidmore at 2:30 p.m.

During doubles play, the Panthers secured all three points. The No. 1 duo of Lubomir Cuba and Kyle Schlanger put the visitors on the scoreboard with an 8-5 win over Bowdoin's Luke Tercek and Grant Urken. At No. 3, Timo van der Geest and Peter Martin doubled the Panther advantage with a narrow 9-8 (2) triumph against Gil Roddy and Justin Patel. The second flight of William de Quant and Noah Farrell grabbed the third point with an 8-4 win over Kyle Wolfe and Jerry Jiang.

In singles action, Cuba made it 4-0 in favor of the hosts with a 6-4, 0-6, 6-2 victory over Urken in the top spot, while Schlanger clinched the match via a 6-4, 7-5 win against Jiang at No. 4. In the third position, de Quant needed a third-set superbreaker to get past Wolfe (7-5, 4-6, 10-6), while Farrell edged Tercek at No. 2 by tallies of 6-4, 7-5.

The Polar Bears tallied their lone point of the match with a win at No. 5. Andre Xiao completed the scoring for Middlebury with a 6-4, 6-2 victory against Patel at the bottom of the lineup.