It will be a fight to the finish for a playoff spot in the America East tournament, and the Binghamton University women’s volleyball team is determined to be one of those last teams standing after this weekend.

The Bearcats (12-15, 4-5 America East) will play what amounts to a must-win game this Friday against the University of Hartford. Binghamton currently sits in fourth place in the conference, which would be good for the final playoff spot. Just a half-game up on fifth-place University of New Hampshire (11-14, 3-5 AE), a loss on Friday would open the doors for New Hampshire to slip into that final spot with a pair of wins this weekend.

Should the Bearcats win, UNH would have to win both of its matches in order to tie Binghamton. Of course, two UNH wins also means losses for second-place teams University of Maryland, Baltimore County (13-11, 5-4 AE) and Stony Brook University (13-12, 5-4 AE), leaving all four teams with a 5-5 record in conference. The four teams would go to tiebreakers to determine the three teams who get playoff spots. These tiebreakers are more muddled because each team would be 1-1 against each other team.

“I’d say [the atmosphere] is a little bit of anxiety,” said Binghamton head coach Glenn Kiriyama. “I think they’re anxious to get the regular season over with and sort of see where we end up — it could be anywhere from second to fifth place. There’s a lot still to be determined this weekend.”

Before stressing over conference concerns, the Bearcats played a nonconference match against Syracuse University (20-10) on Tuesday in the West Gym. Things looked good for the home team in the first set. Despite falling behind 7-2 early, BU rallied for set point at 24-22. The Orange rallied back, though, and Binghamton couldn’t close out the set, losing it 27-25. Tied at 20 in the second, the Bearcats again showed their tenacity by hanging close with the Orange. Once again, though, Syracuse pulled ahead and took the set, this time by a final score of 25-23. The third set once again featured close play, but once again the Orange pulled it out, taking the set 25-20 to finish off the match.

“It’s one of those matches where one player gets hot, another one sort of cools off a little bit,” Kiriyama said. “But overall it was a good match, I thought we played hard throughout … It always comes down to a few plays here and there. Syracuse had the right lineup in at the right time and was able to execute just a couple of plays there to pull it out.”

Senior Sarah Morton led the match with 12 kills for the Orange, while juniors Anna Lejina and Michelle McDonough each put up 11 kills of their own for the Bearcats. The match featured 19 total blocks between the two teams, including six from Morton and seven from Bearcat senior Dawn Lammert.

With their nonconference schedule now over, the Bearcats’ goal is to beat Hartford (7-19, 0-8 AE). The Hawks last won a conference match in November 2007 and haven’t had multiple wins in a season since 2003. Earlier this year BU beat Hartford in three sets (25-14, 25-14, 25-22) on the road, with Lejina leading the match with 16 blocks. This time, the Bearcats will have the home-court advantage. Despite all of these advantages, though, Kiriyama says his team won’t take this match lightly.

“We know it’s a really important match for us,” he said. “It’s one of those that we really need to win in order to make the tournament. So our focus is on Hartford. They’ve improved quite a bit and I think our girls know it, they know that we’ve got to play well in order to beat them.”

The Hawks feature senior Erin Macro, who is fifth in the conference with 3.13 kills per set and second in service aces, while posting the second-most total blocks on her team. Freshman Kami Nethersole was named America East Rookie of the Week earlier this season and led her team in kills the last time the two teams faced off.

Other than the serious playoff implications, the match also has a secondary significance: for seniors Brianna Strong, Dawn Lammert and Julia Vint, it will be their last regular season match as Bearcats. Binghamton will honor their seniors in a pregame ceremony.

Hartford and Binghamton are set to face off in the West Gym on Friday at 7 p.m.