Coming off a loss at Cornell on Tuesday, the Binghamton men’s soccer team continued America East play with a 2-1 loss at NJIT Saturday night. After the match entered into the half, tied at zero, NJIT opened scoring in the second half with two unanswered scores. Despite finding the back of the net late in the second half, BU was unable to complete the comeback.

“I think right now our team is still trying to figure out how we’re dealing with the injury bug that we’ve been bit by,” said Binghamton head coach Paul Marco. “We picked up another one in the game with [junior back Luke Yates] now being out. He’s day-to-day — he got hit in the head and had to come out at halftime.”

Match play began quietly, with neither team attempting a shot for the first 13 minutes. BU (6-5-1, 0-2 AE), however, was the first to break through when Yates rattled off a shot in the 14th minute of play. Just two minutes later, the Bearcats attacked the net again as senior midfielder Billy Clark attempted his first shot of the night. NJIT (4-5-2, 1-1 AE) swiftly responded with five consecutive shots, two of which were saved by graduate student goalkeeper Dylan McDermott.

“I think we need to continue to be efficient, and we need to be better at our shot selection,” Marco said. “I thought yesterday we took a couple of shots that we probably shouldn’t have. We probably needed one more pass to create a better chance, to create a better scoring opportunity.”

Another cold offensive spell from both squads was highlighted by more physical gameplay, as the next 10 minutes of play saw three yellow cards be issued, two of which were against BU. Seconds later, following an offsides call that stopped an NJIT run, BU pushed across the field and secured its first shot on goal of the night, courtesy of redshirt sophomore back Cailen Thomas. NJIT responded with a counterpush of its own, which was handily saved by McDermott, and the squads went into halftime tied.

“I think that we are working on minimizing our mistakes,” Marco said. “We’ve made some mistakes in the last three games that have cost us the games. SPEC goals are all of the goals that we’ve conceded, and in the early part of the year we were not leaking SPEC goals so we have to stop conceding those types of goals,” using an acronym for “set pieces, errors and counterattacks.”

The Highlanders were quick to get out of the gate in the second half, securing consecutive corner kicks in the first 65 seconds of play. Although they were unable to convert, after just five minutes they broke the deadlock, taking a 1-0 lead over BU. The Bearcat’s woes continued as NJIT was awarded a penalty kick in the 65th minute, which it converted to take a commanding 2-0 lead.

“Yesterday we made two errors and they scored two goals, and both were set pieces,” Marco said. “So disappointing. And then we scored a very good goal in the run of play, but just disappointing the outcome of yesterday’s game.”

BU, eager to mount a comeback, attacked the Highlanders’ net, with senior back Carlo Cavalar attempting his lone shot of the night in the 80th minute. The Bearcats’ persistence paid off when sophomore midfielder Alex Balkey lit up the scoreboard for his first collegiate goal in the 83rd minute. Despite attempting the lone remaining shot in the match, Binghamton was unable to level the score, dropping its second match of conference play 2-1.

“I think you’ll see a lot of guys get some time in the game,” Marco said. “It’s important that we try to figure out this week who will be available for the next couple of games, and who might take a little bit longer to get back if they can get back.”

The Bearcats will look to get back on track as they take on Bucknell for their final nonconference match on Tuesday, Oct. 8. Kick-off is set for 6:07 p.m. at the Bearcats Sports Complex in Vestal, New York.