The Binghamton University volleyball team opened homecoming weekend this past Friday, taking a five-set win (25-19, 22-25, 18-25, 25-15, 15-12) over Stony Brook University at the West Gym. The Bearcats (7-15, 4-2 America East Conference), who are now halfway through their conference season schedule and continuing to build momentum, moved into a second-place tie with University of New Hampshire over the weekend.
After dropping two of the first three sets against the Seawolves, the Bearcats surged back to capture the long and turbulent match. Following last week’s five-set loss at Cornell University — the sixth time Binghamton had fallen in seven five-set matches — the narrow win over the Seawolves (7-12, 2-4 America East) made Binghamton head coach Glenn Kiriyama “feel good.”
“I thought it was a good win for us,” Kiriyama said. “Stony Brook has been a strong team the past few years here in our conference. We knew it was going to be a battle. We played well overall and we were just really happy to get a win.”
A slew of Stony Brook attack errors late in the first set pushed the opener in Binghamton’s favor after the Seawolves battled back to tie the score deep into the set. But the next two went to Stony Brook, and Binghamton quickly found itself trailing, 2-1.
In the fourth set, back-to-back kills from senior outside hitter Iva Partaleva handed the Bearcats an early 10-5 lead that they would not relinquish, easily capturing the set 25-15 to knot the match at two games apiece.
Binghamton once again jumped out to a quick lead in the fifth set after back-to-back service aces from freshman middle hitter Megan Burgess put the Bearcats up 3-0. But the Seawolves battled back, and the score would be even three times early in the frame. The Bearcats pushed ahead on a 5-1 run that put the score at 10-6, but Stony Brook would eventually climb to within one. With BU leading 12-11, though, three straight kills from sophomore outside hitter Kristin Hovie, Partaleva and junior middle hitter Grace Vickers sealed the deal for the Bearcats, handing them the 3-2 win.
Hovie acquired a match-high 21 kills, marking the first time this season she’s reached the 20 kill mark. Partaleva also boosted the offense, contributing 18 terminations. The Bearcats accumulated 63 digs in the match to the Seawolves’ 52.
After such a rough tournament slate, the conference season has been quite a successful one thus far for the Bearcats.
“The difficult schedule did prepare the team,” Kiriyama said. “We had some great matches against some tough teams [in the tournament season]. They knew if they could play at this level, we could dominate in conference.”
And though the Bearcats have not dominated, their 4-2 record has them within reach of first-placed University at Albany, which boasts a perfect 6-0 mark. The University of Maryland, Baltimore County sits in fourth place with a 3-3 record, having won this past weekend. BU will play each conference foe one more time and must finish in the top four in order to make it into the conference tournament at the conclusion of the season.
“I think right now, we are definitely in a good position to make the conference tournament,” Vickers said. “If we keep our focus and play the way we have been playing against every single team in the second half of the season, I think we can clinch the one or two spot.”
The Bearcats are scheduled to travel to Baltimore on Friday to begin the second half of their conference slate against UMBC. Play is set for 7 p.m. at the Retriever Activities Center (RAC) Arena.