MIDDLEBURY, Vt. – The fifth-ranked Middlebury College men's tennis team pulled out a narrow win at first doubles and held off 22nd-ranked Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), 5-2, in the Third Round of the NCAA Tournament, on Saturday afternoon at Proctor Tennis Courts. With the win, the Panthers improve to 20-2 on the year, while Engineers snap their 14-match winning streak and conclude their season at 16-3. They tied the school single season record for victories, which was also accomplished in 2012-13 (16-4) and 2017-18 (16-4).

Stan Morris and David Vilys battled to edge RPI's Peter Lohrbach and Aiden Drover-Mattinen at No. 1 doubles, 8-7 (8-6), after the Engineers won on tiebreak at No. 3 doubles, behind the efforts of Eddie Wu and Suhas Krishnan.

RPI then got a singles victory from Drover-Mattinen, who topped Morris in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4. The Panthers' victory came after receiving singles triumphs from Aiden Harris at No. 3, Need Epstein at No. 4 and Zihao Yuan at No. 6.

Emilio Van Cotthem was down a set at No. 2 singles to Noah Laber, but was leading 5-0 in the second. Abraham Yohannes was tied 1-1 with Zachary Hilty when the match concluded.

The Engineers made the Regional Final for the second time in program history, following its previous tournament run in 2018. Middlebury advances to the Elite 8 in Orlando, Fla., next weekend.