The third time was the charm.

Binghamton swept Vermont during the regular season, but the Catamounts got their revenge Sunday by defeating the Bearcats 66-59 at the Events Center in the America East semifinals.

The No. 6 seed and three-time defending champions will now advance to the championship game at top-seeded Albany on Saturday.

“It was their day today,” said head coach Al Walker. “That’s the bottom line. They made the plays. It was their day.”

At first it looked like it would be Binghamton’s day, as early on, the Bearcats were playing their best basketball of the season behind senior Andre Heard. Binghamton raced out to a 20-5 lead, as Heard hit his first four three-pointers and had 13 points in the opening 8 1/2 minutes.

“It was unbelievable how hot he was,” said Vermont coach Mike Lonergan.

On the defensive end, the Bearcats held Vermont scoreless for a six-minute stretch and didn’t allow the Catamounts to reach double digits for the first 11 minutes. Freshman Ian Milne hit a jumper with 6:32 left in the first half to put the Bearcats up 30-16, but it would be all down hill from there.

Vermont crept back into the game with a 16-3 run to cut the deficit to one, 33-32, at halftime. Junior Troy Hailey was called for an intentional foul three minutes into the second half, and Al Walker was called for a technical less than a minute later. Vermont hit all four free throws to take its first lead of the game, and the Catamounts would never trail again.

The Bearcats didn’t get their first field goal of the second half until sophomore Mike Gordon scored with 15:07 left — more than an 11-minute drought without a bucket.

“We knew that was the best they were going to play,” said Vermont point guard Mike Trimboli, referring to BU’s early run. “We knew they couldn’t play like that the entire game.”

They sure didn’t, as the Bearcats shot 28 percent (7-for-25) from the field and 1-for-6 from behind the arc. Heard, who had a game-high 24 points, didn’t hit a field goal in the game’s final 10 minutes and fouled out with 1:48 to go, with his team down by six. Binghamton had nobody else to turn to, as the second-closest scorer was Gordon with nine and then Milne with seven.

“What we wanted to do was slow them down,” Lonergan said. “We wanted to control Heard, and what we really wanted was to force other people to beat us.”

While Binghamton struggled to score, Vermont had three players in double figures. Kyle Cieplicki had a team-high 17 points, including 10-for-10 from the free-throw line. Martin Klimes had 16 points while Trimboli added 12.

Sunday’s loss marked the second consecutive year Binghamton fell to Vermont in the conference semifinals. If the two teams meet in the postseason next season, the Bearcats hope the third time will be their charm.