Their sentimental pre-match ceremony was touching, but graduating seniors Jacki Kane, Kathleen Schauer, Rachel Ayers and Ashley Hoin gave Sunday afternoon’s West Gym crowd something tangible to cheer about in an overwhelmingly one-sided obliteration of last-place Hartford.

The 3-0 win ended the regular season for fourth-place Binghamton University (16-17, 7-5 AE), which will now take on host and top-seed Stony Brook (23-7, 11-1 AE) ‘ which has defeated the Bearcats twice this year ‘ this Saturday afternoon in the America East conference tournament.

Of the senior quartet it is Kane, a 6-foot-1-inch blocker from Colorado, who has put together the resume in her four-year career, but to her, the Bearcats’ quest for their second conference championship in four years is most important.

‘The games have always been really close,’ she said. ‘We have to get out there and play steady.’

Playing alongside Schauer, a longtime friend and fellow Colorado native, made the experience even sweeter for Kane. ‘It was amazing. Kathleen is my best friend ‘ both of us are really emotional right now,’ Kane said after the match.

Kane filled the stat sheet again Sunday, with team highs of 10 kills and seven blocks, but it was Hoin, a third-year walk-on from Menands, N.Y., who stole the show.

Hoin, who moonlighted as a Pipe Dream sports writer for two years, started the second game as middle blocker and immediately made an impact, picking up a kill on the very first point. With the girls on the bench loving every moment of it, she finished the match with four kills and two blocks.

‘Before I went in, [freshman setter] Lindsey [Mueller] kept saying to me, ‘Me and you, me and you,’ Hoin said. ‘It’s like I’ve come full circle ‘ it’s nice because we’ve put in all this hard work all these years. It was like all the right people at the right time.’

‘She is a hard worker, she’s one of the most dedicated of the players,’ said head coach Glenn Kiriyama. ‘She’s a spark plug for us, it was good to see her play and execute very well while she was out there.’

And in what felt like a storybook ending, it was the fourth senior, Ayers, who put the finishing touches on the match with a perfectly placed kill.

‘I felt it was fitting, for a senior who doesn’t play very much to get the last kill,’ said Ayers, an outside hitter from Canandaigua, N.Y. ‘It was really nice ‘ it’s definitely what I’ve been waiting for.’

‘Rachel came in and played bomb,’ said Kane.

The 3-0 (30-15, 30-13, 30-19) desecration of the Hawks was statistically even more of a blowout than the score would indicate. The Bearcats recorded nine service aces and hit .298 for the match, while Hartford recorded just two team blocks and hit -.017, with 30 attack errors.

For BU, Mueller had five kills on seven attempts for a sizzling .714 mark ‘ in addition to her 32 assists, 14 digs, three aces and two blocks.

A big win was a good way to erase the sour memories of Thursday night’s tough loss to the Seawolves, Schauer said.

‘It’s great to get some momentum going,’ the team’s captain said. ‘I know all of us are ready.’

Sunday also marked the return of junior libero Jaclyn Strader to the lineup after she missed Thursday night’s SBU game for undisclosed reasons. Strader (who recorded eight digs) and the Bearcats will travel to Long Island for a season-ending banquet on Friday before the weekend’s playoff contest(s).

‘I think all of us have a legitimate shot at winning it,’ said Kiriyama. ‘We’ve got to get out there and take advantage of our advantages.’