After last week’s flooding led to the cancellation of its match with Bucknell University, the Binghamton University women’s soccer team turned its attention to Sunday for a contest against Siena College. After strong efforts by each team in regulation, Siena scored the game’s only goal 7:03 into overtime to hand the Bearcats their fourth loss of the season.

The Saints (3-0) won their 20th consecutive non-conference home game while the Bearcats (3-4) dropped their fourth game of the season by a score of 1-0 and their third in overtime.

Seven minutes into extra time, the Saints sent a corner kick toward Bearcat sophomore goalkeeper Carrie Martin. Martin deflected the cross, but the ball landed right in front of Saints forward Lisa Valenziano, who tapped it in from point-blank range to give her team the lead.

“That’s unfortunately how a lot of overtimes end and for us it’s just been about getting on the other side of it,” head coach Sarah McClellan said. “If we can continue to compete the way we have been, if we can put it all together, I think just a couple of more things need to click in our attack and then these games don’t go into overtime. And in the games that do go to overtime, the result goes the other way.”

In the 83rd minute of play, Binghamton had a chance to grab the lead. Siena goalkeeper Laura Ettinger tried to cut off a long pass at the top of the goalie box, but Binghamton sophomore midfielder Kaitlyn Cook beat her to it. With only the goalie to beat, Cook sent the ball just barely wide of the net.

“We had a really great chance late in the second half that we narrowly missed,” McClellan said. “There were times in the game where we were really knocking on the door for goals. From the opening whistle, I thought we started off really well. In the second half, Siena pushed us back a little bit and it was a more even game.”

On paper, it was a pretty even fight, with Binghamton managing 13 shots to Siena’s 14. Despite the loss, McClellan was happy with her team’s effort and acknowledged the caliber of opponent her team was facing.

“Siena’s an NCAA tournament team and they’re highly ranked,” she said. “It was disappointing for us to end up losing the game because we thought we earned better, but if we look at it with respect to the opponent we were playing, I’d say not too shabby.”

After starting the season 2-1, the Bearcats have gone 1-3 in their last four contests and have scored only two goals over that span.

“I definitely think we’re tired of losing by a goal,” McClellan said. “But I do think that’s better than being outplayed and really getting beaten by another team. So we know that these games could have gone either way and there are some little things that were the difference makers in each that we can flip around to our favor. And we’d rather get them out of the way now and be on the other side of it when it comes to conference [play].”

Next up for the Bearcats is a matchup against Cornell University. The Big Red is 0-4 so far this season and has been outscored 8-0 in its last three games. The matchup will be Binghamton’s last non-conference game this year.

“We want to keep improving on those certain moments that we may have a little bit of a lapse in and have fewer of those going into Cornell,” McClellan said. “We want to put a full game together on both sides of the ball. Then we’ll have a good amount of time to rest, recover and train hard as we get into conference play.”

Binghamton is scheduled to travel to Ithaca for a 7 p.m. contest tomorrow against Cornell.