The Binghamton men’s soccer team visited Hamilton, New York on Friday evening to take on Colgate. After the Bearcats took an early lead, they surrendered two goals to the Raiders in a back-and-forth contest. resulting ended in a 2-1 loss.

“For last night’s game, I thought we were very good in the game,” said Binghamton head coach Paul Marco. “[We] played really well, we got off to a great start [and] we got an early goal.”

Binghamton (0-3-0) got the ball quickly and in the second minute of the game, got on the scoreboard. The goal came from graduate student midfielder Jack Green with an assist from junior back Carlo Cavalar. Cavalar passed the ball from the middle to Green who took a long shot on goal, giving BU a 1-0 advantage.

“The [referee] could have given us a penalty,” Marco said. “There was a handball in the box. The video shows it clearly but it wasn’t given, and the guys just kept playing, I was proud of that moment, usually when you feel like you’ve earned something and you don’t get it there’s a little dip in the performance but our guys stayed true. They were terrific.”

The ball went back and forth between the Bearcats and the Raiders. In the early minutes, BU took just one shot that missed the net while Colgate attempted three shots. One made it to Binghamton’s net but was saved by graduate student goalkeeper Dylan McDermott. In the 44th minute, a Bearcat defender attempted to head the ball away from the goal but the ball ended up in Binghamton’s net, giving Colgate its first goal of the game. Going into the half, the match was tied 1-1.

“Then I don’t know what happened for the last 30 seconds of the first half,” Marco said. “We just stopped playing. We stopped competing. We didn’t close space, and then we scored [our] own goal. To give Colgate some life we gave them hope so now they go into their locker room feeling like they’re back in the game because really prior to that moment they really didn’t have any chances out of goal.”

Both the Raiders and the Bearcats looked to take the lead in the second half. Colgate had an early opportunity when they took a shot on goal that was saved by McDermott. After this save, Colgate attempted two more shots and BU got one shot off in the span of a few minutes.

“Then to start the second half I thought we were good again, and then just took for granted one moment and let it direct a ball that they played long,” Marco said. “We missed playing it and the [ball] goes in our goal and that was the game.”

Colgate seized their next opportunity in the 65th minute of the game when they took a shot that found the back of the net to take a 2-1 lead. In the 75th minute, BU took a shot on goal to try and tie up the game, but it was saved by the Raiders’ keeper. Colgate also attempted another shot on goal to try and take a 3-1 lead in the 83rd minute but the shot was saved by McDermott. BU tried several more times to score but was unable to find the back of the net as the Bearcats suffered a 2-1 loss.

“I think that the competition has to be more meaningful [and] we need more game situations in training,” Marco said. “We need more result-oriented achievement stuff in training. We started putting that in [and] when you put that stuff in, now it becomes more combative. Now you know there’s more contact [and] players can get injured, so we’re trying to balance the challenge between being more competitive with each other and not injuring anyone. It’s a fine line and it’s one I think we need to straddle right now.”