Coming off a loss against Temple, the Binghamton volleyball team was swept by UNH on Sunday afternoon. The Bearcats and Wildcats have split their last eight matchups with BU most recently defeating UNH in a reverse sweep in the 2023 America East (AE) semi-finals. This time, the Wildcats got their revenge, defeating the Bearcats in three close sets.

“It could have gone either way,” said Binghamton head coach Allie Yaeger. “It was our unforced errors, unfortunately, that allowed [UNH] to take the wins in all three sets.”

The lead teetered between Binghamton (12-8, 2-2 AE) and UNH (12-7, 3-1 AE) to start the match. The opening set was characterized by a variety of challenges as the Wildcats were successful with their first two challenges, while also winning their third challenge to the tie game at nine. Later in the frame, consecutive aces from fifth year outside hitter Tsvetelina Ilieva, then made it 18-14 to give the Bearcats some breathing room. The set went into overtime as things went back and forth, but UNH gained momentum down the stretch to take set one 28-26.

“I felt like we kind of controlled the first set a lot,” Yaeger said. “We had a lead in both the first and second sets, like later on by two points, like 20 to 18, and we just couldn’t finish. We missed serves, which we can’t do, and we couldn’t find our way out of a couple of different rotations.”

BU jumped out to a 5-2 lead in set two but UNH quickly responded with a 5-0 run to go up 7-5. The Bearcats and Wildcats continued to go back and forth as a drop in kill from freshman right side hitter Viktoria Dimitrova tied things at 15. Both teams then traded runs once again with a 3-0 run giving BU a 20-17 lead. However, UNH quickly got back into it with a 7-1 run to retake the lead at 24-21. Despite two kills from Ilieva to keep the visitors in the set, an attack error from Dimitrova gave the Wildcats the set victory at 25-23.

“It was just unfortunate because we just couldn’t put enough balls away when we really needed to put balls away,” Yaeger said. “We were not connecting well when it comes to our setters and our hitters on a couple of missed opportunities that we had.”

Set three saw more of the same as UNH took an early 5-2 lead. However, the Bearcats used a 7-0 run to take the lead at 9-6. The Wildcats slowly regained the lead as the set went on, going up by as much as four at 18-14 and then 23-19 to force a BU timeout. Coming out of the timeout, Binghamton was unable to regain any real momentum falling 25-21 and suffering a sweep at the hands of UNH.

“I was proud of how focused the girls played throughout the match and how well they knew what New Hampshire was going to do,” Yaeger said. “Unfortunately, it was our errors at the end, for sure.

Ilieva led all players with 25 kills in just three sets, her 17th match of the year with double-digit kills and her third straight match with 20 or more kills. However, the team struggled overall, posting a .164 hitting percentage.

“We just need a little contribution from a couple of other people on the court,” Yaeger said. “We can’t always just rely on [Ilieva] all the time, even though she played unbelievable. She’s such an amazing player, and she continues to impress me every single day. We’ve just got to find a way to help her out and to find a way to win.”

Binghamton will stay on the road, taking on Colgate on Wednesday, Oct. 16. First serve is set for 7 p.m. at Cotterell Court at Reid Athletic Center in Hamilton, New York.