Will Ashley of the Middlebury baseball team set a single-game program record for runs batted in (RBI), collecting 10 on Saturday to help the Panthers breeze past Rutgers-Newark 25-8. Ashley also hit for the cycle in the triumph.
 
HIGHLIGHTS

• The hosts took a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning on back-to-back doubles to right-center field from Michael Weinbel and Matthew Storch.
• In the top of the second, Middlebury exploded for eight runs on six hits and took advantage of a pair of Scarlet Raider errors. Brian Olson blasted his first career home run to start the outburst, while Ashley provided a three-run roundtripper. Carter Chi and Owen Fox induced consecutive walks with the bases loaded to push the seventh and eighth runs across the plate for an 8-2 advantage.
• Rutgers-Newark sliced the deficit with four runs in the home half of the inning, including a two-run single by Storch to pull within 8-6.
• Chi ripped a two-run single to left with one out in the fourth to drive in Gus Parker who reached on an infield single and Ben Slaughter who walked. Anthony Pellagrini followed with a double to right, bringing home Olson for an 11-6 edge.
• The Scarlet Raiders responded with a pair of tallies in their next at-bat. Weinbel drove in the first with a single to right and later scampered home on a double to left center from Joseph Bernardo.
• Middlebury tacked on eight runs in the fifth, highlighted by bases-clearing doubles from Fox and Ashley, to grab a 19-8 lead.
• The Panthers scored four times in the sixth, including a three-run triple off the bat of Ashley to complete his cycle, for a 23-8 advantage.
• Middlebury added single tallies in the eighth on Ashley's record-breaking RBI on a single to left, followed by a double from Pablo Spielman-Rodriquez in the ninth for the final 25-8 score.

NOTES

• Ashley's RBI total surpassed the record of nine set by teammate Kyle McCausland in April 2023. He also tied the program's single-game mark for hits (five) and at-bats (seven). Ashley's three-run homer in the second was the first roundtripper of his career, while he touched home plate four times. He also secured his first cycle in the blue and white uniform. 
• Spielman-Rodriquez and Pellagrini both posted a career-high three base hits, while Parker matched his best output with three base knocks.
• Fox and Chi finished the contest with career bests in RBI as each Panther had three.
• Middlebury's 25 runs scored are the most since the program recorded the same number in a 25-6 triumph on April 12, 2022.
• The programs played for just the second time with the Panthers winning the only other matchup 7-4 in 1998.

Middlebury remains in the Garden State for a Sunday doubleheader at Stevens with the first pitch of the twinbill scheduled for 11:00 a.m.