Ed Stephenson has stood here before, for seven years to be exact ‘ four as a player, three as a coach.

But he’s standing on the other sideline now; a visitor, no longer bearing a uniform or stick.

And he’s standing here a double-overtime victor, beaming because of his team and his program, the one he was charged with creating.

You can go home again. And you can win, too.

‘It was a great moment for coach,’ said midfielder Matt McNamara, the junior whose goal broke the 7-7 deadlock.

Stephenson, in his fifth year as head coach of the Binghamton men’s lacrosse team, had just witnessed his Bearcats defeat a top-10 team for the first time ever.

The unfortunate victim of Binghamton’s ascension to lacrosse relevance? Stephenson’s alma mater, Towson, ranked No. 8 in the country at the time. It was the first time Binghamton had faced its coach’s old squadron.

Three wins and exactly two weeks later, BU men’s lacrosse would reach the highest national ranking of any team in school history, No. 16.

Fifteen miles and change separate where Stephenson stands now, Johnny Unitas Stadium, and his hometown high school.

He traveled a long way to end up just half an hour down the road in March 2006.

THE JOURNEY

It was summer time, and Stephenson was entering his sophomore year at Dulaney High in his hometown of Timonium, a town in the wings of Maryland’s greatest city, Baltimore.

The Old Line State is known for blue crabs, the neighborhood that produced Carmelo Anthony and, at a constantly increasing rate, lacrosse. Stephenson’s friends knew of the sport some labeled the fastest on two feet, and he decided to take a peek one afternoon.

‘It was one of the coolest games I’d ever seen,’ Stephenson recalled. ‘So I thought I wanted to give it a shot; my mom bought me a stick the night right before practice.’

Stephenson always thought he would be able to turn football into an education. It turned out his football coach, Paul Miles, and Miles’ football-and-lacrosse-playing son Greg, who served as a role model for Stephenson, would be the guiding lights that allowed Stephenson to turn lacrosse into an education.

‘[Paul] really put me in a position to be successful in athletics,’ Stephenson said. ‘That’s where I first learned the discipline of athletics and the mental toughness, from him.’

Learn Stephenson did, on one of the country’s most competitive high school teams. Towson took notice of the outstanding defender and offered a scholarship.

‘I don’t know if financially I could’ve put myself through school without lacrosse and without a lacrosse scholarship,’ Stephenson said. ‘It would have been very difficult.’

As a Tiger, Stephenson was three-time all-conference, and in his senior year was an all-American as Towson made its first-ever NCAA tournament berth. Though he would play professionally for the Pittsburgh Bulls of the Major Indoor Lacrosse League for three seasons after college, Division I lacrosse was where Stephenson wanted to be.

‘The dream for lacrosse players is college; college is the zenith, that’s what it’s all about,’ Stephenson said. ‘There’s nothing greater than Division I college lacrosse.’

After his pro stint and three years of high school coaching, he got the call to come back to Towson as a defensive coordinator in 1993.

‘I always knew all through college that whatever I ended up doing, whether it was going into business or teaching ‘ whatever avenue I chose ‘ that I would always coach and give back to the game,’ Stephenson recalled.

Little did Stephenson know he’d give his career to it.

Nine years and stops at two other Division I programs as an assistant later, Stephenson was hired to bring the newly born Binghamton men’s lacrosse team to Division I prominence.

He started from scratch, with his first recruiting class graduating just last summer.

THE PRESENT

He’s getting awful close to gold.

‘I think now we’re at a point where we’re no longer the underdog,’ Stephenson said. ‘Although people still see us as one of the new kids on the block, we’ve established ourselves with these wins over the years and how competitively we’ve played.’

Even before the Bearcats’ 2006 surge to national prominence, Stephenson’s team had taken major strides.

Two years earlier, with only one upperclassman on the team, Binghamton went 6-0 in America East regular season play, led by the nation’s statistically leading defense. Stephenson took home AE Coach of the Year hardware for the accomplishment.

‘Those wins that season, with such a young group, it was really a Cinderella year,’ Stephenson recalled. ‘You just don’t see that in athletics today with no recruited upperclassmen ‘ what they accomplished is incomparable.’

He may not have had the most talented team, but Stephenson coaches by the mantra, ‘you’ve got to adapt to your players.’

‘My sophomore year it was a little more of a kind of slow-down style,’ former-Bearcat goalie Kevin McKeown explained. ‘And I think lately they’ve been picking up the pace and I think ‘ even more this year it should be more of a faster-paced team.’

Stephenson’s already gone home. Now, as his roster improves, he wants to go all the way.

‘That’s our goal, we want to get to the NCAA tournament,’ he plainly stated.

Glance over the Bearcats’ 2007 road to the Big Dance ‘ Towson is conspicuously missing.

Been there, done that.

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Check out Pipe Dream Friday for a full season preview of the men’s lacrosse team.