The Binghamton volleyball team won the Fairfield Invitational over the weekend, going 3-0 and defeating Central Connecticut, Fairfield and Boston College. After sweeping Central Connecticut 3-0 on Friday, BU defeated Fairfield in four sets and BC in a reverse sweep to cap off its doubleheader on Saturday.

“It was exactly what I was looking for and waiting for,” said Binghamton head coach Allie Yaeger. “I continue to talk about taking steps forward and learning to play as a team and learning to win as a team and that’s exactly what we were able to do this weekend.”

Binghamton (4-3) dominated its tournament-opening match against Central Connecticut (0-5) on Friday afternoon, winning in three sets — 25-12, 25-21 and 25-8. The Bearcats cruised to victory, firing on all cylinders with a .466 hitting percentage while holding the Blue Devils to a .134 hitting percentage overall and a -0.087 hitting percentage in the third set.

“We were really able to distribute the ball,” Yaeger said. “We had lots of aces, we took the other team out of system and we stayed in system.”

On Saturday, the Bearcats took on Fairfield (2-4) in their first game of a doubleheader, defeating the Stags in four sets. After dropping the first set 25-19, BU went on to win the next three sets 25-17, 25-22 and 25-17 to earn the victory. Despite coming out of the gates slow with just a 0.059 hitting percentage and nine attack errors in set one, Binghamton’s offense picked things up, consistently hitting over .333 for the rest of the match.

“We had to stay really focused and disciplined while playing them,” Yaeger said. “I thought we did a good job. Our serve and pass game really helped us throughout the weekend.”

In its final match of the invitational on Saturday, Binghamton matched up against an undefeated Boston College (5-1) team, looking to be crowned tournament champions. The Bearcats went down two sets to none, dropping the first set 26-24 and the second set 25-18. However, Binghamton stayed in the match, taking the third set 25-22 and the fourth set 25-20 to even things at two.

BU went down early and played from behind for most of the fifth set. With BC leading 13-10, a service error by the Eagles and two service aces from sophomore middle blocker Misa Dlouha contributed to a 5-0 run to end the set with a 15-13 win, completing the reverse sweep. The win marked Binghamton’s first victory against a Power Four school since 2012.

“We had that on our minds, but it just shows that even though we’re a smaller school in a smaller conference, we can still do really big things,” Yaeger said. “Beating a team like Boston College was huge for this program.”

Graduate student outside hitter Tsvetelina Ilieva captained the offense for BU over the weekend, amassing 47 kills over three games, earning her tournament MVP honors. Sophomore outside hitter Ella Schabort and Dlouha were also named to the all-tournament team. Schabort had a bounce-back weekend with 35 kills while Dlouha reinforced the BU defense, totaling 21 blocks.

“[Schabort] was a huge part of this weekend,” Yaeger said. “I felt like this weekend was kind of her break out weekend. [Dlouha] had a ridiculous amount of blocks and that helped too. The things that we were good at, we did a really good job with.”

Binghamton will continue its preseason schedule against Hofstra on Wednesday, Sept. 11. First serve is set for 6 p.m. at the David S. Mack Physical Education Center in Hempstead, New York.