The Binghamton men’s lacrosse team traveled to Hartford Saturday looking for its second America East (AE) victory of 2016, but instead suffered its second loss in a row, 17-9.

Both teams came out firing, combining for nine goals through the first quarter. After junior attack Jaedon Henderson started the game off with an unassisted goal for Hartford, the Bearcats evened the tally under a minute later, by way of freshman midfielder Joe Licata. Just 42 seconds later, BU senior attackman Johnny Maher put the Bearcats up, 2-1, with 12:16 remaining in the first period.

Following three straight goals by the Hawks, junior midfielder Matthew Kaser and senior midfielder Zach Scaduto scored back-to-back goals to tie the contest at four. Kaser scored twice more throughout the match, once in the second quarter off an assist from Scaduto and once in the fourth, to capture his second hat trick in three games.

“He’s been getting better and better,” BU head coach Scott Nelson said of Kaser. “He’s a smart player and he really hustles. That’s how he practices and he’s getting his chance on the field now and really taking advantage of it.”

After being outscored, 5-2, in the second quarter, BU entered halftime trailing, 10-6. Not skipping a beat, Hartford started off the second half with four straight scores — three of which came within 30 seconds of each other. Senior midfielder Mitchell Rick broke the streak with 5:25 to go in the third to make the score 14-7.

Hartford scored three more times before the end of the contest, while the Bearcats added two goals before being defeated, 17-9 loss. Nelson believes that BU’s loss in the possession game led to its loss on the field.

“We just didn’t have the ball enough,” Nelson said. “Simple as that. They had 14 possessions and scored on 10 of them, so we talked a lot about that. We told [the team] that we need to get more shots on the defense, too. Fortunately we did a little better in the second half but not that much.”

Now in the heart of the regular season and two games into its AE schedule, the Bearcats won’t make many drastic changes going forward. BU currently sits tied for fourth in the AE conference. The Bearcats will continue to move forward and evaluate each position as they look to keep pace in the conference.

“We’re going to take a look at everything and everyone,” Nelson said. “We haven’t discussed making a change yet but we’ll take a look. Everybody gets a chance at practice all week to impress us.”

The Bearcats are set to host conference foe UMass Lowell on Saturday, April 9. Face-off is scheduled for 1 p.m. from the Bearcats Sports Complex in Vestal, New York.