After a barnstorming start to the season, Middlebury men’s baseball dropped a three-game series to conference rival Amherst over the weekend, bringing their record to 12–7. On Friday, Middlebury walked it off in a thriller, but Amherst sailed to two wins over the next day’s doubleheader.
It was a pitcher’s duel in the first game. Chase Zidlicky ’29 took the mound for the Panthers, facing the Mammoths’ Nick Fassert. For the first four innings, neither of them budged. Then in the fifth, the Mammoths broke through for two runs.
Zidlicky bowed out in the sixth inning, giving up only two earned runs and striking out six. Christian Zebrowski ’28 relieved him, tossing three perfect innings, notching four strikeouts, and keeping Middlebury in the game until the end.
Incredibly, Amherst’s Fassert was bidding for a perfect game until the sixth — when the hitting machine that is Henry Ayers ’29 hit a single ( keeping his average at .500). Sam Gersch ’29 followed up with a triple, cutting Amherst’s lead to 3-1.
To the bottom of the ninth, the Panthers went. To the relief of all Middlebury hitters, Fassert had been taken out in the eighth, so it was a new ballgame.
“We knew if they were going to switch the pitcher, we definitely had a chance,” Alex Glasscock ’28 said. “And we saw the body language of the team, and it was like ‘yeah, we’re going to win this.’”
“Regardless of what happened the first eight innings, it’s all about the next pitch,” head coach Mike Leonard added.
The Panthers took that advice to heart, loading the bases from a walk and two singles — one of them by Joe Basso ’27 on a two-strike count.
“His ability to see multiple pitches and grind that out, find a way on base, was really impressive,” Leonard said.
With defeat looming, Anthony Pellagrin ’27 hit a single to bring in two runs and tie the game at 3-3. One pitch later, Brian Olson ’28, as he tried to check his swing, ended up dishing the ball into center field for a single. Gersch thundered around third, sliding into home ahead of the Mammoth outfielder’s throw: comeback complete.
“We have this narrative that we can win those games… we’ve won those games before,” Glasscock said.
And then came Saturday. Around 50 people lined the first-base side of the field, alternating between watching baseball and the softball team down below, who won all four of their games this weekend.
The first game of the day could have swung either way. Of course, the Amherst pitcher decided to have the game of his life again — seven innings, two runs. But after Ayers hit a solo shot, Amherst was only up 3-2 heading after five. In the sixth, a double cleared the bases to make it 6-2, and Middlebury couldn’t reproduce any of the theatrics from the day earlier.
“There were a couple moments that didn’t go our way— and unfortunately went Amherst’s way,” Leonard said. “That was the difference.”
Saturday’s second game was more lopsided than the first. After four innings, Amherst led 6-0. “It’s a barrel party!” yelled the Amherst players — one of their tamer remarks. In the fifth, Glasscock sparked some momentum when he hit a solo home run to right-center field. The Panthers then loaded the bases, and it looked that they might pull closer, but a groundout ended the inning.
“I think we’ve taken a lot from those two losses. This team is really good at learning from those things and not dwelling on them,” Glasscock said.
For a team that only has one senior, the weekend was a learning experience. And they’ll have their chance to get revenge against Amherst later in the year, whose pitchers will have hopefully transferred to DI by then. In the meantime, the Panthers face Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on Wednesday and then head to New York to play Hamilton in back-to-back games on Friday and Saturday.
