The Binghamton men’s lacrosse team’s season came to an end Saturday night with an 10-18 loss to UAlbany. Binghamton got off to an early 4-2 lead, but UAlbany retook the lead early in the second quarter and held onto it for the rest of the game to secure the victory. Binghamton nearly qualified for the America East (AE) playoffs, but a tiebreak win saw Merrimack get the fourth and final seed.

“It was kind of a wild day,” said Binghamton head coach Kevin McKeown. “Maybe not thinking we would be in that do-or-die situation, obviously with how that afternoon game went, we ended up kind of being in a playoff game that night, so it was a weird range of emotions.”

The Great Danes (7-7, 6-1 AE) got on the scoreboard early with a goal in the first 33 seconds of play. BU (6-7, 4-3 AE) evened the score at one-all with a goal from senior attack/midfielder Liam Ferris and Binghamton soon grew its tally to three when junior attack Matthew Keegan and senior face-off Ross Chazanow both found the net. At the 3:53 mark, UAlbany cut BU’s lead to 1, but Keegan struck back, scoring his second goal of the night. The Great Danes scored twice in the final 54 seconds of the quarter and Binghamton headed into the second quarter tied 4-4.

“I think we came out with good energy and competed well,” McKeown said. “I just think UAlbany made some more key plays in key moments than we did and they were able to capture some momentum and we gave up a few too many goals in the first half … We kinda dug ourselves into a hole and they are a tough team to come back against.”

In the second quarter, the Bearcats got on the board first as Keegan found the back of the net for the third time. UAlbany responded with a three-goal run, taking a 7-5 lead over the Bearcats. Binghamton continued to attack the goal and freshman midfielder Jack Mellen lit up the scoreboard with his first goal of the night. The Great Danes continued their strong performance with a 3-1 run to end the second quarter, during which Mellen scored his second of the night. BU went into the third quarter down 10-7.

“I thought in the first half our offense played well,” McKeown said. “I thought [Chazanow] played really well in the first half, battled really well [and] scrapped really well. I thought our compete level was good. We came out with good energy — we just did not execute well enough.

The third quarter opened with a nearly four-minute scoring drought that Binghamton ended with a goal at the 11:04 mark, as Keegan found the back of the net for the fourth time. UAlbany went on a 3-0 run to end the quarter and BU entered the fourth quarter down 13-8.

“I thought we did okay there [on transition defense],” McKeown said. “We gave up two goals on transition and they’re a team that likes to push it. I think going from offense to defense, we did pretty well. But we gave up a couple of face-offs that ended up hurting us.”

The Great Danes got the scoring started in the fourth quarter, going on a 4-0 run to take a 17-8 lead over the Bearcats. The Bearcats responded by Ferris scoring his second of the night at the 7:49 mark. The Great Danes however, continued to maintain the momentum. Freshman attack Andrew Girolamo scored the final goal of the night for BU with 3:56 to play as the Bearcats fell to the Great Danes 18-10, ending their season.

“I just want to thank our seniors,” McKeown said. “That’s what I told the guys last night. They’re leaving our program in a better place. It felt like they deserved as a group, a better ending than we had last night. That’s the position we put ourselves in and unfortunately, we lost out on that tiebreaker situation, but they are a great senior group and they did a great job advancing our program forward.”

The loss cuts the Bearcats’ season short as they miss AE playoffs for the first time since 2021. Despite the loss, many Bearcats found individual success this season. Keegan led the team in goals with 34 on the year. Chazanow finished his Binghamton career with the third most total face-off victories at 348. Junior goalie Connor Winters finished tied for 15th in the nation in saves per game with 12.85.