The Binghamton University men’s soccer team has already accomplished its goal of qualifying for the America East tournament. This Saturday night, the fourth-seeded Bearcats are scheduled to begin their next goal of capturing an America East championship at the Bearcats Sports Complex, when they host fifth seed University of Maryland, Baltimore County Retrievers for the second time in as many Saturdays.

This past Saturday in their final conference match of the regular season, the Bearcats defeated UMBC 4-0. Although that result is a good omen for the Bearcats, playing a team twice within a week can present some new challenges. Binghamton head coach Paul Marco doesn’t foresee any significant changes being made going into the first-round match.

“I don’t know how much the teams have changed in a week’s time,” he said. “It’s difficult to make changes that drastic. All of the teams know each other by now, it’s just going to be a question of who goes out and executes.”

In last week’s match, the Bearcats contained the Retrievers’ top two players, sophomore forward Andrew Bulls, who leads the nation in scoring with 15 goals and 40 points, and junior midfielder Levi Houapeu, who was second in the nation behind his teammate in each of those two categories. With that said, Marco feels his players will have to adapt defensively throughout the match.

“I do think that guys are going to make adjustments,” he said. “I think those adjustments are made through the flow of the game, as much as they are in preparation. You try to teach players to recognize visual cues and make decisions off of them. We’ll certainly have to pay attention to [Bulls and Houapeu]. They’re the [America East] Striker of the Year and Midfielder of the Year [respectively]; we’re going to have to [watch] those two guys.”

The Bearcats have alternated wins and losses over their past eight games. The pattern bodes well for their match on Saturday, as they lost their season finale at Hartwick 2-1, but Marco feels that each game is unique in the challenges that are presented and that some of their losses could have gone either way.

“Where we’ve fallen short occasionally, we had created opportunities to win the match,” Marco said. “And we either ran out of time or fell a little short. I don’t think we’re going to do anything drastically different. We are who we are, and the guys need to go out and execute.”

The Bearcats currently have some health issues, with a few guys banged up or falling ill. Ryan Walter, Joel Collins and Scott Zobre are currently day-to-day, while Greg Mathers and Matt Robertson are expected to be ready to go. C.J. Scirto is doubtful for the match with an injury.

Marco is anticipating the help of a big crowd on Saturday night and is hopeful that the student body will make its presence known.

“I do expect us to have a full house on Saturday night,” he said. “I think our Hooligan group will come out and support the team; I know the team is looking forward to seeing them again.”

The Bearcats have played in six straight conference championship matches, and Marco feels his team has a good chance at going to a seventh.

“I think we’re talented enough,” he said. “One of our keys is going to be really showing our strength in the match and showing good character. And we need to be able to let go of anything that’s not helping us get to where we want to be. Whether that’s during the run of play, whether we wanted something to happen and it didn’t … we just have to let go of it and keep moving forward. If we can do those things, I can see us going back to the final.”

Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. at the Bearcats Sports Complex.