AUBURNDALE, Fla. -- Behind career highs from Nick Vento and Joe Vita, the Washington & Jefferson baseball team dispatched Western Pennsylvania foe Allegheny 9-1 in Florida.

With the win, the Presidents move to 4-2 on the season and the Gators drop to an even 2-2 through the first four games of their Florida trip.

Vento finished 3-for-4 and a home run shy of the cycle with a career-best five RBI. Vita worked a career-best 8.0 innings and scattered seven hits and allowed just the one run and struck out a batter. He needed just 85 pitches to make it through the eight innings.

The Presidents' right fielder drove in the first two runs for W&J as the red and black led 2-1 after three innings.

In the bottom of the fourth, W&J blew the game open with six runs, with the big hit being a bases-clearing triple to right-center by Vento. That followed an RBI double by Nelson McKown and a bases-loaded walk by Gannon Rooney. Vento came in to score when Kyle Smith reached on a fielding error by the shortstop and the Presidents controlled an 8-1 lead.

The remaining score of the game came on a Michael Ruffing single down the right-field line in the seventh that scored McKown who had recorded his second double of the contest.

Rooney, Ruffing and McKown all finished with two hits and an RBI apiece. Rooney and McKown each scored two runs as well.

W&J is off on Wednesday, March 18 before playing Fairleigh Dickinson-Florham at 9 a.m. on Thursday, March 19 in Winter Haven, Fla.