Last month, the Binghamton women’s basketball team gave Hartford its biggest scare of the year, falling to the Hawks by one point at the Events Center. Since that game, the teams have taken divergent paths — Hartford is undefeated and Binghamton has lost five of eight.

The different patterns continued from the opening tip at the Chase Arena Saturday, as the Bearcats found out why Hartford is clearly still the class of the America East.

Hartford (21-2, 13-0 AE) opened the game with 14 unanswered points and never looked back, defeating Binghamton (13-11, 6-7 AE) 66-56. The Bearcats fought back valiantly, but could never get within striking distance as the Hawks rode hot shooting and solid defense to their 15th consecutive victory.

“It was tough, we got out of the gate really slowly,” said head coach Rich Conover. “We did a nice job recovering, though. I thought we played a lot better after that opening run.”

After missing their first six shots, the Bearcats finally got on the scoreboard seven minutes into the game when sophomore Juta Jahilo hit a jumper to make the score 14-2.

BU fought back to get within six points twice in the first half, and went into the break trailing by eight.

Hartford continued to dominate the game in the second half, going up by as much as 17 as they put the game out of reach. Hartford shot 50.1 percent for the game.

The loss is the Bearcats’ fourth in a row and fifth in their last six games, but Conover thought his team made some progress.

“We played with a lot more energy than in the previous games,” Conover said.

Hartford has lost just twice all season long, with those losses coming from major conference foes UConn and Miami. The Hawks have clinched the America East regular season title by going undefeated thus far in America East play.

“They’re clearly the best team in our league,” Conover said. “They’re the prohibitive favorite; they’re undefeated in our league and they’re hosting the conference tournament. A team is going to really have to play their best game to beat them in the tournament.”

Senior forward Jen Haubrich led the Bearcats with 12 points and Jahilo added 10 off the bench. Senior forward Rachel Laws had her biggest impact since returning from an ankle sprain, scoring six points and grabbing seven rebounds in 16 minutes of playing time.

The loss drops the Bearcats to fifth place in the America East, one-half game behind UMBC.