Seven games down. Seven to go. After a 1-6 start, the Binghamton University men’s lacrosse team is hoping that the best is yet to come.
With five crucial conference games on the horizon for the Bearcats, the season thus far hasn’t been exactly what the team anticipated it would be. The Bearcats dropped their first four games of the season before earning their first win against Marist, but they have since lost two consecutive games, the first of which was to the Bellarmine Knights by a score of 9-7.
“I don’t think we took care of the ball very well,” Bearcats head coach Ed Stephenson said of the March 17 loss. “We struggled. We weren’t shooting enough high percentage shots on net to challenge the goalie.”
Four days later, the Bearcats traveled to the Carrier Dome in Syracuse to face the No. 2 Orangemen, a game Binghamton lost, 13-4. The Bearcats lost by a 16-2 margin to Syracuse the previous season and were able to play well enough early in this year’s game to keep it close.
“Last year we were more concerned with the name on their jersey,” Stephenson said. “This year, we came in and kept our composure. We controlled the ball well in the first half, and it was a good game up until that point. We had 16 shots in the first half and only seven in the second half. We failed to clear a couple of times and made some careless turnovers in the offensive end, and unforced errors really sting you against a team like that.”
Despite the loss, Stephenson was optimistic about how the game was played and how his players are learning from playing against high-caliber teams like Syracuse.
“We’re building on some things,” Stephenson said. “We played pretty well defensively, and when we did run our offense, we got some good shots. We need to do both more consistently.”
The Bearcats’ schedule hasn’t been easy. The team lost games against Cornell (currently ranked No. 4 in the country) and Hobart (ranked No. 17), lost an overtime heartbreaker to Villanova (No. 19), and, most recently, took on the No. 2 Orange.
“We’ve played the toughest schedule in the America East conference, and we have one of the top 10 toughest schedules in the country,” Stephenson said. “We have to build on that. We feel we should have won a couple of those games; we had ample opportunity to beat Villanova and could have won if we produced some offense against Hobart. We have to recognize that and continue to get chances in the offensive end.”
The schedule does not get any easier for the Bearcats. This Saturday they will take on No. 20 Albany, and the following Saturday they will travel to face No. 8 UMBC on the road. But these particular games have one glaring difference from the previous games that can be summed up in a single word:
Conference.
“It’s a whole new world,” Stephenson said of the upcoming matchups. “Every conference game is one of the biggest of the year. Every game is huge. The Binghamton-Albany game is the biggest game of the season for both sides. We’ve had some real barn-burners with these guys over the years.”
The Albany game this Saturday is the first of five critical conference games over the next month for the Bearcats. Binghamton will travel to UMBC on April 4, take on Vermont at home on April 11, travel to Stony Brook on April 18 and play Hartford at home on April 25 to finish out the regular season.
Keeping consistent with the tough schedule, the Bearcats will also play non-conference games at No. 18 Colgate on April 7 and at No. 9 Maryland on April 14. Assuming that the aforementioned teams remain ranked until then, that will mean that the Bearcats will have played against eight nationally-ranked opponents in its 14 regular-season games.
While the future will certainly be daunting for the battle-tested Bearcats, they are closely focused on how to take down No. 20 Albany, who the Bearcats have beaten just two times in nine matchups. Coincidentally, both wins were regular-season finales: 2004 in Albany and 2007 in Binghamton. Each game was won by the same score: 9-8.
“There are a handful of things we have to do well,” Stephenson said. “We have to clear the ball better, produce more shots on a consistent basis for four quarters and defensively eliminate any easy goals. Our guys have learned from their experiences so far, and we’re going to build on what we do well.”
Binghamton’s game against the Great Danes will take place this Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Bearcats Sports Complex.