The Binghamton volleyball team extended its winning streak to six games, defeating Hofstra in a midweek matchup and sweeping Rutgers and VCU at the Rutgers Invitational over the weekend. The win against Rutgers marked BU’s first-ever win against a Big Ten opponent in program history and its second win against a Power Four opponent this year.

“They’ve gotten so much more confidence along the way, since it’s just an experience thing,” said Binghamton head coach Allie Yaeger. “As the time passes, we keep getting better and we keep learning how to play with each other.”

The Bearcats (7-3) kicked off their week with a matchup against Hofstra (2-4), winning in four sets. Graduate student outside hitter Tsvetelina Ilieva, coming off an MVP performance the weekend before, led all players with 20 kills off a .349 hitting percentage. Despite all four sets being relatively close, BU was able to gather momentum late — with error-free volleyball — to earn the victory.

“I feel like the whole weekend was close sets,” Yaeger said. “Once we get to the 20s, we really harp on not making any errors and being as aggressive as we can. I thought we did a really good job closing out and staying focused and being error free once we hit the 20s with a lot of our matches that we played this weekend.”

Binghamton then went on to compete in the Rutgers Invitational starting on Thursday evening, earning a sweep — 25-22, 26-24, 28-26 — against the hosting Scarlet Knights (3-5). In set one, Binghamton overcame a small deficit as a kill from Ilieva gave Binghamton the first set victory. The Bearcats’ defense held Rutgers to a .000 hitting percentage in set two while pulling away late in overtime in set three to get the win.

“For the girls’ confidence, it was huge [to beat Rutgers],” Yaeger said. “It was huge for the program. It’s very rewarding to coach this team and see how far we’ve come in just a short amount of time. It was a lot of fun because it shows the girls that they’re capable of beating big and physical teams.”

To finish off its two-game slate on Friday, BU captured another 3-0 victory against VCU (1-4) — 25-20, 25-13 and 26-24 to finish off the weekend. The Bearcats found themselves ahead for almost the entirety of the match. Despite being down 24-22 in set three, Binghamton ended the game on a 4-0 run to close out the match, with an ace from Ilieva to seal the deal.

“That was the one I was the most worried about, especially after coming off that Rutgers match, just because I know we were tired,” Yaeger said. “I knew we had to be focused and I was hoping that we were going to be as fresh as we possibly could be. But, we won long rallies. We got big points when we needed big points.”

Yaeger mentioned that while Ilieva’s continued success on the court is fantastic, the team’s overall success this year will also rely on those around her to step up and contribute. This weekend, she discussed how she enjoyed seeing the parts around Ilieva come together and click well.

“[Ilieva] really came through,” Yaeger said. “We tried really hard to not make it the ‘Tsvet’ show. Even though she is our best player, we can’t win if it’s just [Ilieva] all the time. I thought everybody did a good job contributing and the setters running the 6-2 are doing a good job of setting who needs to be set at what times. Everybody’s doing a really good job.”

Binghamton will look to extend its winning streak as it takes on Cornell on Wednesday, Sept. 18. First serve is set for 7 p.m. at Newman Arena at Bartels Hall in Ithaca, New York.