The Binghamton University men’s lacrosse team opened its 2011 campaign with a hard-fought 9-7 loss at the hands of the Penn State Nittany Lions on Saturday in University Park, Pa. Trying to start off the new season strong after struggling to a 4-10 record last year, the Bearcats played like a motivated, hungry team for most of the game. But in a tightly contested affair in which neither team led by more than two goals, the Bearcats finally found themselves on the wrong end of their third two-goal deficit of the game; in this case, the third time proved to be the charm for the Lions.
Despite taking a 6-5 lead early in the fourth quarter on a goal by senior co-captain David Raleigh, the Bearcats were unable to protect the lead, giving up four goals in the final quarter to give Penn State an advantage it would not relinquish. Despite the result, BU head coach Ed Stephenson was pleased with the overall team effort.
“It was a real competitive game,” Stephenson said. “I thought our kids played really hard and showed a lot of heart … In the first game, especially being a road game, I can tell a lot about how our team is going to be and how mentally tough they’re gonna be. And I really liked the energy on the sideline and in the game.”
Another thing that the Bearcats learned from the season opener was that it doesn’t appear that sophomore attack Matt Springer is going to have any type of sophomore slump this season. Building off a stellar freshman year in which he scored a school-record 29 goals, recorded a point in every game, was named to the America East All-Rookie Team and was also dubbed the team’s Most Valuable Player, Springer carried the Bearcats’ offense on Saturday, scoring four goals and single-handedly digging them out of early 2-0 and 5-3 holes. By recording points in this game, Springer has extended his point streak from last season to 15 games, tying the 18th-best active streak in the nation. The attack’s performance this season will have a lot to do with the fate of this year’s men’s squad.
“We knew going in that Matt was our top guy last year, and coming into this season, he’s made a lot of improvements over the summer, so it’s nice when you have a guy of that caliber that also makes improvements each year. He’s a vital piece to our offense,” Stephenson said.
While Springer accounted for over half of his team’s offensive output on Saturday, BU is far from a one-man show. Last season BU scored 132 goals, the most in the program’s history.
However, some of this offensive firepower has come at the expense of a little leakiness on the back end. The Bearcats showed some of those tendencies at Penn State as the defense gave up goals in bunches, including two goals in the first minute of the game and three more surrendered in a two-minute span at the end of the first half.
“The defense played really well, but we had about four lapses in the game where we got caught staring at the ball and they got some easy goals there. But other than that I thought we really played physical defense,” Stephenson said.
Even though the outcome of the game may not have ended up in Binghamton’s favor, this was still an effort that exhibited some reasons for optimism for the 2011 season. With an emerging Springer and week-by-week development, Stephenson expects the Bearcats to be competitive.
“What I’m looking for is improvement each week, and we’ve certainly done that so far,” he said. “And if we can improve on face-offs, defensive focus and taking care of the ball on offense, we’re gonna be a good team.”
The team is set to visit Lafayette College on Saturday to square off against the Leopards. The game is scheduled for a 3:30 p.m. start.