The endurance to sustain and defend an attack takes practice and energy. Coming off only three days’ rest since the high-powered game against Cornell University, the Binghamton University men’s lacrosse team lacked energy and was handed its second straight road loss to Hobart and William Smith Colleges on Saturday at Boswell Field in Geneva, N.Y.

What started as a back-and-forth game ended in a 15-10 loss following a trio of goals by Hobart senior Sam Miller late in the third quarter.

“It’s disappointing,” BU head coach Scott Nelson said. “I thought we were starting to get better and better and then we had a setback. We just didn’t play very well and we had some chances to get the game closer in the second quarter and third quarter and we just didn’t do a great job. We were very poor in the middle of the field, on the face-offs, on the ground balls, so it was disappointing. We expect a lot of our guys; we’ve got some great guys on the team so we’re disappointed with our effort.”

BU went down two goals within the first 1:15 of the game, but responded quickly with four goals of its own, two coming from junior midfielder Tyler Perrelle. But Hobart recovered to even the score at four by the end of the first quarter.

The Statesmen went on to outscore Binghamton 9-3 in the second and third. With both teams taking a total of 17 shots over the middle two quarters, converting proved to be the difference.

The Bearcats tried to rally back late in the game, but the deficit proved to be too much.

Although the match marked BU’s second consecutive road loss, it also included a handful of Bearcat firsts as freshman midfielder J.T. Hauck and junior midfielder Matt Moynihan both recorded their first collegiate goals.

Sophomore midfielder Michael Antinozzi recorded three goals for his third consecutive hat-trick. Antinozzi, who added a career-high four ground balls and an assist, was named the America East Men’s Lacrosse Player of the Week. He leads the league with 10 goals through three games.

Despite several of impressive individual performances, Binghamton was left with a sour taste in its mouth following the Hobart game. Binghamton holds a 2-1 advantage over the Statesmen at home, but in four tries has yet to win against Hobart on the road.

Nelson said that he will leave it up to his team to make the decision as to how it will respond to its past two losses.

“Teams are going to go through that. How we respond to that is going to be our decision and it’s going to show us what resolve we have,” Nelson said. “[Losing] certainly doesn’t boost our confidence, but that’s what sports are about … coming back from a loss. Wins are easier to come back from, but a loss takes good guys and I think we [have] that. I’m not too worried about us coming back, but we’re just going to have work through it.”

Binghamton will look to bounce back against a 1-2 Siena College team on Saturday at home following a full week’s rest. BU is 2-2 all time against the Saints and will look to take an upper hand in the series after losing in the teams’ last bout.

“We’ve seen Siena play in person a couple of times and we think they’re very good,” Nelson said. “I think we’re going to have to get better in unsettled defense. We can’t give up as many fast breaks as we have the last two games in a row. We have to try to control their unsettled opportunities and we’ve got to play good 6-on-6 defense. And then we’ve got to have a few more quality possessions. We’re scoring some goals [Saturday] and we didn’t score most of them until the end, so it wasn’t our best offensive output. I just think all around, we have to play the game a little bit better in the middle of the field and cut down on their unsettled opportunities.”

Binghamton’s game against Siena is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Saturday at the Bearcats Sports Complex.