In its return to America East play, the Binghamton men’s lacrosse fell to visitors Albany on Saturday 11-9. After grabbing a comfortable 5-1 lead after the first quarter, the Bearcats were outscored by the Great Danes in each of the final three quarters en route to their defeat.

“I think the teams that are at the top of the conference are all extremely competitive,” said Binghamton head coach Kevin McKeown. “We’ve had close games the past few years with everybody. So we just need to make sure we’re learning from these results, win or lose, and continuing to get better as we get toward the end of April.”

Throughout Saturday’s match, Binghamton honored and celebrated the life of fallen firefighter John “JR” Gaudet, who was also an alumnus of the Binghamton men’s lacrosse team. Outside of his service as a firefighter, Gaudet served the community as a volunteer youth sports coach, working with organizations like Binghamton Youth Lacrosse.

(2:27) “I was able to play with JR for two years,” McKeown said. “I was in the same class with him here, and we talked about him and his selflessness and [were] able to tell some stories from when he was here and he was the same way. I wasn’t surprised to hear that he was putting his life on the line in an unfortunate tragedy. So we’ll continue to honor him and do a lot of the youth stuff in the community moving forward.”

After a successful clear attempt by Binghamton (4-6, 2-1 AE) kickstarted its first possession, senior attacker Dan Garone opened the scoring. The next two BU possessions saw two scores from senior attack Gage Adams. BU continued its red-hot start with strikes from graduate student attacker/midfielder Liam Ferris and senior midfielder Thomas Kelly that capped off the 5-0 unanswered run. Albany (4-8, 2-2 AE) would finally get on the board at the 2:02 mark, capitalizing on a failed clear attempt by the Bearcats, as quarter one came to a close.

“I’m not sure how much changed,” McKeown said of the team surrendering an early lead. “I do think they made a good switch from going to zone. I think that just slowed our offense down a little bit. I thought we were really attacking well early, and when they went to zone, we just kind of had to change what we were doing.”

The second quarter opened with a triplet of scores from Albany to cut its deficit to 5-4. After Albany’s game-tying score was nullified by a crease violation, sophomore attacker Andrew Girolamo found twine to end Binghamton’s 15:21 scoreless run. The Great Danes managed a retaliatory score to cut the lead within one before the clock ran out with the scoreboard reading 6-5 Binghamton.

“We had a couple failed clears, couple penalties in that second quarter, where I thought we just shot ourselves in the foot a little bit and gave them some opportunities to gain some momentum, which they did,” McKeown said. “Overall proud of the effort … I thought we had some good opportunities to finish. We just didn’t put it in the back of the net.”

Albany continued mounting pressure in the second, opening play with a pair of scores to take a 7-6 lead. After stopping an Albany clear attempt, a BU fast break saw Ferris score once more, but the tie was swiftly broken by a pair of Albany scores to take a 9-7 lead. Senior long stick midfielder Paolo Capucciati then found twine with three seconds in the quarter as the Bearcats entered the fourth quarter trailing by one.

“I thought we rolled the ball well,” McKeown said. “I think [senior goalie Connor Winters] played well in net. I do think we played well defensively, six on six. They got going a little bit in transition off the failed clears, which was a focus for us. So I think definitely still plenty to work on, and [we] have three big conference games left.”

Once again, Albany was the first to get on the board, taking a 10-8 lead early in the fourth quarter. Binghamton nearly found twine when two consecutive shots from junior midfielder Will Feldmann bounced off the crossbar, but instead, the Great Danes scored again with 1:55 to play for 11-8. Ferris found twine to keep the Bearcats in it, but the Great Danes recovered possession and ran out the clock for Binghamton’s first AE loss this season.

“They’re just good offensively,” McKeown said. “You’re not going to hold a team like that down really, really low. I feel like if we maybe didn’t make those mistakes we can hold them to a single-digit number, which typically if you do, you put yourself in a good position.”

The Bearcats will look to move back into first in the AE when they take on UMBC on Saturday, April 12. Faceoff is scheduled for noon at UMBC Stadium in Baltimore, Maryland.