Two skilled teams — one overachieving and one underachieving. Factor in home field advantage, balanced with a red hot opponent and each team getting swings of control.

Those sound like the ingredients for an exciting game of soccer, but as the Binghamton men’s soccer team (1-4-3) battled Lehigh (4-1-1) to a 0-0 draw, there was one crucial ingredient missing: scoring.

“I thought at times we rushed ourselves a little bit, not being in the rhythm when it was time to finish the ball,” said head coach Paul Marco. “We created many opportunities in the first half and we didn’t have anything to show for it.”

One would have expected there to be plenty of scoring opportunities, as the Bearcats out-shot the Mountain Hawks 12-8, but the more telling statistic about Wednesday’s match was the saves. Each goalie only made three saves, yet each recorded a shutout. Neither team was able to put the ball on goal with any consistency.

Freshman Jason Stenta started his second consecutive game in goal, as junior goalkeeper Ryan Bertoni was moved to the midfield by Marco in an effort to shake things up, and as a result of injuries. Bertoni himself was affected by the latter, as a battle for the ball let to an inadvertant hit from a Lehigh player to Bertoni’s face 13 minutes into the match. Bertoni left the field with a broken nose.

Stenta, meanwhile, recorded his first shutout. He only needed to make one difficult save, but he did so convincingly. With 11 minutes left in regulation, Lehigh forward Jim Taranto worked past several Binghamton defenders and set up Robert Quinlan with an open shot at the top of the box. Stenta’s diving save in the top left corner stopped the game’s best shot.

“I thought that Stenta from a defensive side was very good today — solid, understood his role, did the things he had to; he cleaned up a lot,” Marco said. “His kicking needs to get better for the next match. It was very inconsistent today; sometimes he hit bombs and sometimes he gave the ball right back.”

It was the Bearcats’ inability to clear the ball in the last 20 minutes that nearly cost them the game. Binghamton controlled the midfield for most of the game until Lehigh attacked with fury at the end of regulation.

“There was a 15 to 20 minute stall in the second half where Lehigh had a great amount of pressure on us,” said junior midfielder Matt Narode.

Binghamton has yet to establish any sort of offensive presence this season, averaging less than a goal per game, a number that, simply put, won’t win any games.

“I think the team this year is a bit more attractive to watch than last year, meaning we keep the ball a little bit more, but on that we don’t have winners yet,” Marco said.

“We worked hard all over the field. It was just a lack of sharpness when it counted in the box,” Narode said. “We were just unlucky.”

The truly unlucky may have been the Bearcat faithful, who braved the weather through two hours of scoreless soccer.

Binghamton faces Hartwick on Saturday at 2 p.m. at West Gym Field for its last home non-conference game.