The Binghamton men’s lacrosse team earned its first victory Saturday in convincing fashion, defeating America East foe UMBC, 16-10.

“It was so important,” Binghamton head coach Scott Nelson said. “Getting the first conference win is tremendous; our conference is great and to beat UMBC, a historically great program, is just a great win for us.”

BU (1-4, 1-0 AE) started off the game firing on all cylinders, netting the first goals of the contest to put the Retrievers on their heels early. UMBC (1-4, 0-1 AE) answered with only seconds left in the first to cut the lead to 3-1. After both teams scored three in the second period, Binghamton went into halftime ahead, 6-4.

The Bearcats came out of halftime energized, breaking the game open in the third quarter. After a back-and forth start, BU broke away just before the 11-minute mark in the third quarter, scoring four unanswered to grab a commanding 12-6 lead.

“Our offense took a few weeks to get going, but these last weeks we’ve been putting the ball in the goal,” Nelson said. “It’s a lot of fun for us to watch the way our kids are playing; they’re getting a lot of goals off of hustle.”

The Bearcats were able to close the contest out with four goals in the final period to secure their first win of the season. BU tied a record for scoring in the home opener and Nelson credited the offense’s resurgence to recent changes in the lineup.

“We moved [senior] Johnny Maher from midfield to attack and that’s just made us much more dynamic,” Nelson said. “And its put a lot more pressure on the back of the goal. We bumped up some freshmen to some starting jobs; [freshman midfielder] Joe Licata has been absolutely tremendous for us.”

Senior midfielder Zach Scaduto added to his strong campaign on Saturday, scoring four goals for the Bearcats. He now has 11 on the season, which leads the team and is just one shy of his career high for goals in a season.

“Zach Scaduto had another fantastic game,” Nelson said of the senior. “He’s been clutch for us and he can play both ends of the field.”

Sophomore attack Thomas McAndrew and Licata joined Scaduto with hat tricks of their own. Sophomore midfielder Ben Kocis anchored the BU offense with a career high two goals and four assists en route to earning AE Player of the Week honors.

The Bearcats also dominated at the faceoff. After taking 21 of 30 on Saturday, the Bearcats have a .564 faceoff win percentage on the season.

“We had the ball so much, we won almost every faceoff,” Nelson said. “We knew we were going to have the ball a lot and our offense took advantage of it.”

In a quick turnaround, the Bearcats are set to match up against Drexel on Tuesday. The game is set to start at 4 p.m. from the Bearcats Sports Complex in Vestal, New York.