On Saturday, the Binghamton men’s lacrosse team hosted St. Bonaventure for its home opener, narrowly escaping with a 13-12 win in overtime. After scoring the first two goals of the game, the Bearcats gave up five unanswered goals. They were not able to recover from that deficit until late in the fourth quarter when BU managed to tie the contest, before junior attack Matthew Keegan found twine for the game-winning score in overtime.

“It was certainly a wild one,” said Binghamton head coach Kevin McKeown. “We knew it was going to be a battle. [St. Bonaventure is] a really tough team. They play hard. It was a battle last year, and not a surprise it was another battle again this year.”

In the first five minutes, the Bearcats (1-1) put up two goals, one from graduate student defender Declan Ferris and the other from sophomore attack Colin Delay. However, soon after, St. Bonaventure (0-2) responded with a 5-0 run to take a 5-2 lead. Finally, with less than a minute to go in the first quarter, Binghamton answered, stopping the bleeding, with a goal from junior attack Dan Garone, making the first quarter score 5-3.

“I thought we missed the cage a little bit,” McKeown said. “[We] maybe settled for some shots that [could have been] better ones.”

Opening the second quarter, the game went back and forth between the two teams. Keegan captured the first goal of the quarter for BU to make it a 5-4 game. The rest of the period saw both teams trade goals with senior attack Liam Ferris finding the back of the net to cut the St. Bonaventure lead to 8-6 going into halftime. The weather was a factor throughout the entire game, as snowstorms and high winds kept coming into the Vestal area.

“We’re not strangers to [bad weather],” McKeown said. “I know St. Bonaventure isn’t stranger to it. I think it contributes to maybe a little bit of the sloppiness and some of the turnovers.”

Both teams continued back and forth to start the third quarter. The Bearcats scored three times in the quarter, with a St. Bonaventure goal coming in between each Binghamton score. The Bearcat goals came from Ferris, Keegan and graduate student midfielder Sonny Imburgia. However, BU’s deficit remained the same at the end of the third period, with the Bonnies holding an 11-9 lead over the Bearcats.

Going into the fourth period, BU started off strong as Garone and Keegan found twine to tie the game at 11. With three minutes left the regulation, St. Bonaventure scored, grabbing a 12-11 lead. Yet, less than a minute later, the Bearcats responded with a goal from Garone. Then, with 31 seconds left in the game, Keegan took a shot that hit the crossbar as the match went into overtime. However, the game didn’t last much longer. BU won the face-off, and Ferris got the ball to Keegan, who shot the ball and scored the game-winner as the Bearcats completed the comeback to secure a 13-12 win.

“It was an unbelievable feeling,” Keegan said. “[I’m] super proud of the guys. We battled back [and] faced a lot of adversity that game, but it is always super exciting to scrape a tough one out like that.”

Binghamton now begins a four-game road stretch starting next against Lafayette on Saturday, Feb. 24. First face-off is scheduled for 12 p.m. at Fisher Stadium in Easton, Pennsylvania.