MIDDLEBURY, Vt. - The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) baseball team had a tough go of it on Wednesday afternoon as the Engineers were defeated by the Middlebury Panthers by a final score of 13-3 at Forbes Field. With the win, Middlebury moves to 15-7 overall on the season, while RPI falls to 13-8 overall.

The Panthers got things going early, scoring a pair of runs in the bottom of the first with an RBI double from Andrew Ashley and an RBI single from Mitchell Schroeder to give them a 2-0 lead. Middlebury added four more runs in the bottom of the third thanks to another RBI double, this time from Zip Malley before A. Han collected an RBI triple to also score a pair to push the Panthers lead to 6-0.

RPI broke through on the scoreboard in the top of the sixth inning, as Joey Saia and Julian Scarpa went back-to-back with RBI doubles, with Saia bringing in two before he scored on Scarpa's extra base hit. That helped cut the Middlebury lead to 6-3 before the Panthers matched the Engineers in the bottom of the inning. Highlighting the bottom of the sixth inning was a two-run home run by Kyle McCausland to bring Middlebury's lead back to six runs, 9-3.

The Panthers added another four runs in the bottom of the eighth to break things open, as a two-run home run from Sammy Smith highlighted the scoring in the inning as Middlebury extended the lead out to 13-3.

Schroeder ended the day 3-for-4 with a walk and RBI for the Panthers, while Middlebury had three others with two hits apiece. RPI collected eight hits on the day, all coming from eight different batters.

RPI returns to action this Saturday, April 13 when they take on RIT in a doubleheader in Rochester starting at 12 p.m.