Coming off a heartbreaking last-minute loss to No. 18 Towson on Saturday, the Binghamton men’s lacrosse team had little time to recoup heading into its matchup against Drexel on Tuesday. That short turnaround time lent itself to a season-high 17 turnovers en route to a 9-5 loss for the Bearcats (2-5, 1-0 America East), who were unable to escape the fire of the Dragons (4-5) defense.
“We did a poor job with the ball on offense, turning the ball over and giving [Drexel] a lot of opportunities,” BU head coach Scott Nelson said.
The game didn’t begin poorly for the BU offense, however. Redshirt freshman attack Sean Gilroy opened scoring for Binghamton on his second shot of the day, putting his team on top, 1-0, early in the first.
Following Gilroy’s goal, the two squads traded shot chances until freshman midfielder Michael Kay put Drexel on the board, evening the tally at one. Binghamton fired two more missed shots in the quarter’s remaining minutes to end the first with the edge in shots, 7-6. But five turnovers by BU in the quarter kept its goal total to only one at the end of the first 15.
“This was our worst day turnover-wise, I think, and that was very disappointing,” Nelson said. “We’re not a team that turns the ball over that much and we did. So we kept giving them opportunity after opportunity to score, and they certainly capitalized on it.”
They did so quickly, too. The Dragon offense caught fire in the opening minutes of the second, turning the contest from a 1-1 defensive stalemate to a 4-1 Drexel lead less than five minutes into play. Senior attack Paul O’Donnell and junior attack Zach Scaduto cut the margin to 4-3, putting the Bearcats within striking distance late in the first half. But in the closing minutes of the quarter, Drexel netted one more to push its lead to 5-3 as the teams headed into the break.
Bringing in the third quarter with a one-minute tripping penalty, the Bearcats allowed their second man-down goal of the contest just over one minute into the half. Now trailing by three on the road, BU’s offense went to work, as Gilroy buried his second of the day off of an unassisted chance. After a response goal by the Dragons, sophomore midfielder Tyler Deluca scored Binghamton’s fifth of the matchup to end scoring in the third with BU down, 7-5.
Poised for a comeback — despite facing a 34-19 shot deficit — the cards were stacked for the Bearcats at the start of the fourth. Winning the opening faceoff of the quarter, the two-minute possession by Binghamton included a pair of shots and a one-minute man-up opportunity after an unnecessary roughness call on the hosts. But the Bearcats were unable to turn opportunities into points. Following the first possession, the BU offense turned the ball over three consecutive times to strip itself of looks.
“We just had too many turnovers,” Nelson said. “Where we wanted to get a shot, we’d just turn the ball over and give it right back to them. It’s just too much pressure on the defense.”
The Bearcats lost a player of their own because of a one-minute cross-check penalty midway through the stanza. But BU was only down a man for 36 seconds before the Dragons scored their third man-advantage goal of the game. The following Drexel possession pushed the lead for Drexel, 9-5, with less than six minutes remaining to play.
With AE play revving up for the Bearcats against Hartford on Saturday, Nelson is looking for his players — both young and old — to rise to the occasion after a streak of tough non-conference losses.
“We’re trying to get our seniors to produce, and they’ve got to understand that,” Nelson said. “They’re the leaders of the team.”
BU is set to face off against Hartford at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Bearcats Sports Complex in Vestal, New York.