Plagued by defensive woes while facing a dominant Siena offense, the Binghamton men’s lacrosse team dropped its home opener on Saturday afternoon at the Bearcats Sports Complex. Siena (2-1) controlled the game’s tempo early and outshot its hosts, 37-33, en route to its 13-9 victory.
The Bearcats (1-1) had cut a four-goal Siena lead to 10-8 with 8:07 left in the fourth quarter, but the defense surrendered three scores in the next six minutes, putting the game out of reach.
BU head coach Scott Nelson noted that both the offensive and defensive efforts were not up to par with the winning performance against Sacred Heart last week. During that game, the Bearcats allowed just six goals.
“We didn’t react to some situations very well, and offensively we didn’t execute what we were trying to do,” Nelson said. “I thought we were playing very good defense after last week’s game only letting up six goals on the road, it was terrific, and then we come home and let up 13 at home, so that’s disappointing.”
The Saints got out to an early 2-0 lead in the first quarter before Binghamton ignited its offensive engines with two minutes remaining. Junior midfielder Emmett O’Hara, assisted by senior teammate Kelly Donigan, put the Bearcats on the board at 1:57, and redshirt junior midfielder Alex Doerflein followed up with a second goal with only four seconds left. Sophomore teammate T.J. DiSanto recorded an assist on the play.
In the second quarter, after a Siena goal was disallowed because of a crease violation, redshirt senior attackman Matt Springer netted his third goal of the season to grant BU its first and only lead of the game, 3-2. But just two minutes later, Siena junior midfielder Conor Prunty scored a pair of unassisted goals.
The Saints controlled the tempo from that point on to close out the first half with two more goals, widening the margin to an insurmountable four points at 7-3.
“I thought we had to be a little tougher picking the ball up off the ground,” Nelson said. “We had called a couple things that in the first half that we didn’t run for some reason, and they went right down and scored off that.”
The Bearcats found their offensive rhythm at the beginning of the third quarter, attempting to gather momentum to spark a comeback. Five minutes into the period, Springer converted his second and third goals of the game. But Siena did not waste a moment — the Saints responded with two scores to extend the advantage to 10-5.
Springer scored his game-high fourth goal on a man-up opportunity with just less than a minute to go in the third quarter. With the score, Springer became the first Binghamton men’s lacrosse player to net 100 career goals since the program joined Division I 13 years ago.
Halfway into the fourth quarter, the Bearcats cut Siena’s lead to two, thanks to goals from junior attackman Tucker Nelson and sophomore teammate Mitchell Rick. The narrowed margin was short-lived, as the Saints scored again on a two-man-up opportunity after a pair of Binghamton penalties were assessed. The Bearcats scored a goal late in the final quarter off the stick of senior midfielder Michael Antinozzi, his first goal of the year.
Three Saints recorded hat tricks in the game while the Bearcats saw one-point contributions from five of their players, in addition to Springer’s four scores.
The Bearcats will look to bounce back today, as they are scheduled to host Cornell. The Big Red, pegged at No. 15 in the Inside Lacrosse poll, will enter the Bearcats Sports Complex after defeating Hobart College, 12-8, on Saturday.
“Obviously [Cornell has] an incredible tradition and we’re just starting ours, so that’s going to be a battle,” Nelson said of the upcoming contest. “They’ve always been great, and hopefully we can play a little better defense on Tuesday.”
The match is set to begin at 4 p.m.