On Wednesday, the Binghamton women’s basketball team hosted Hartford for just its second home game in over a month. The squads battled for four quarters when the clock ran out and each team’s score read 50. After a contested overtime, the Hawks team took the extra period and won 59-57 to hand the Bearcats their sixth straight loss.

“​​I’m proud of this team,” said Binghamton head coach Bethann Shapiro Ord. “Hartford came in here fighting, we went on runs, they went on runs in the fourth quarter … But that overtime, I just thought we had it but again, you can’t have empty possessions.”

With the Hawks (2-16, 2-5 America East [AE]) up 59-57 and 19 seconds to go, Hartford missed two free throws to give BU (4-10, 0-4 AE) one last chance to win the game. Junior guard Cassidy Roberts inbounded to junior guard Denai Bowman who drove, got free and before she could shoot was called for a charge which fouled her out.

“With us having eight, it’s tough when you have foul trouble and when one of your best players, [Bowman], is out there playing with three [fouls] and then putting her out with four, she made it into overtime, but that was rough,” Shapiro Ord said. “That last shot when that call didn’t go our way, but it went in, it would have been another bucket, but instead, she fouls out, might be a different end game.”

The same shooter then missed two more free throws, giving BU another shot with 12 seconds remaining. Senior guard Hayley Moore took the ball up, handed it off to junior guard Clare Traeger who drove and kicked it out to junior forward Jalyn Van Dyke for a 3-point shot but missed as the buzzer rang.

“It’s a heartbreaker, we put ourselves in a position to win and go into overtime and have an opportunity,” Shapiro Ord said. “We have the ball at the end when we needed it and shots just weren’t falling for us tonight for whatever reason.”

Going into the fourth quarter, BU had an eight-point cushion. The frame began with junior forward Birna Benonysdottir hitting a layup which the Hawks followed up with an 18-2 run over the next seven minutes to take the lead. As the clock ticked past the one-minute mark, the team fed Bowman in the paint who wrapped around a defender and drew a foul while making the layup and free-throw to bring the deficit within three. After a Hartford free throw and a scoreless possession from each team, Bowman pulled through again, driving and nailing a midrange jumper as she was fouled. She proceeded to miss the free throw but corralled the ball back and was fouled for the third time. With 15 ticks to go, she was given an opportunity to tie the game at 50 and executed, capping off a seven-point minute for the junior.

“[Bowman’s] been tremendous when she gets her shot off,” Shapiro Ord said.

The start of the game was a similar story to the rest of the season, as BU relied on Benonysdottir and Bowman for all but two of their first-quarter points. Benonysdottir’s hot start quickly fizzled as she shot seven for 23 from the field, missing all six of her threes. The Bearcats as a whole only shot 3-27 from beyond the arc, but Shapiro Ord said the game plan coming in was to feed the ball inside and to hit free throws.

“That was the game plan: let’s go inside out, I think we were trying to force a little bit too much on the outside and we just kept talking about attacking the rim, getting to the free-throw line, and we got to continue to do that,” Shapiro Ord said. “And the other thing is usually we make more of our free throws. We only went 63 percent tonight, so that was tough as well.”

Outside of Bowman and Benonysdottir, Roberts was the only player to get to the line, converting on five of her six shots. The junior recorded her first double-double of her collegiate career, scoring 11 points and grabbing 10 boards. She also had a team-high six assists. Similar to Bowman, in the waning minutes of overtime, Roberts committed her fifth foul and had to leave the game.

“Then [Roberts] obviously fouling out at the very end,” Shapiro Ord said. “You want your point guard, you need your point guard in there, but we had to give a stop, we had to put them to the free-throw line. It’s just the way it kind of ended.”

The Bearcats are scheduled to take on UMBC next. Tipoff is set for this Saturday, Jan. 29 at 5:30 pm at the Chesapeake Employers Insurance Center in Baltimore, Maryland.