After three losses in two weeks, the Binghamton men’s lacrosse team won its first game of the season Saturday, beating Marist 11-4.

The Bearcats (1-3) played their first three games on the road, losing twice to nationally ranked teams, but in front of a home crowd of 300, freshman attack Drew Wichmann took over, scoring three goals and assisting on two.

‘It felt great to get a win under our belt; hopefully we can get this rollin’,’ Wichmann said. ‘Most of my goals were from the crease, I didn’t have to do much one-on-one ‘ Jake Boyce and Rob Williams gave me some great looks.’

Marist (0-4) opened the scoring and led 2-1 after the first quarter on sophomore Nick Hautau’s two goals, but Binghamton would enter halftime with a sizable lead after rattling off five straight goals ‘ each by a different Bearcat ‘ in a two-minute, 15-second span.

Senior midfielder Matt McNamara extended the streak to six goals from six different players with 6:26 to play in the third quarter.

‘It’s just what we want to see happen, we want to see as many guys involved in the scoring as we can,’ McNamara said. ‘John Dreska scored, we had a defenseman involved ‘ you can’t ask for any more than that.’

After scoring once in the third, the Red Foxes scored their fourth goal with 29 seconds to play against junior goalkeeper Jeff Walker, who saw his first playing time of the season in substitution for starting sophomore Larry Kline in the final minute.

Kline had 11 saves against 33 Marist shots, while Red Fox sophomore goalkeeper Ryan Penner had 12 saves against 46 shots. It was the first time this season the Bearcats outshot their opponent.

After the loss, Marist is still searching for its first win (the Foxes lost to Hobart in their following match), while the Bearcats are searching for accuracy.

‘Right now as a team we’re shooting 20 percent. I think you got to have that number around 35 percent,’ head coach Ed Stephenson said. ‘We’re not a team that typically outshoots an opponent; we’re looking for high-percentage shots.’

Binghamton won the groundball battle 29-24, and sophomore J.P. Wioncek took 11 of 19 faceoffs, putting him at .522 for the season.

Binghamton had not scored 11 goals or more in a game since defeating Drexel 11-6 on April 25 of last season.

‘CATS FALL TO DREXEL

One minute into the fourth quarter, sophomore Drexel attack Ron Garling broke the 2-2 deadlock the Dragons and Binghamton had been in since halftime with his decisive second goal of the game, as the Bearcats fell 4-2 last Wednesday.

The Binghamton men’s lacrosse team (1-3) was down 2-0 to then-No. 20, now-No.19 Drexel (4-2) with under a minute and a half remaining when freshman attack Steve Carlson put Binghamton on the board. Shortly after, with 10 seconds to go before halftime, Vestal native Jeff Rurey scored the first goal of his collegiate career to tie the game.

‘[Rurey] turned the corner, took a hit ‘ and took the extra step knowing he was going to get hit ‘ and created a little bit better angle for the shot and put it right in,’ Stephenson said. ‘At that time we definitely needed some goals.’

Binghamton, which outshot Drexel 14-6 in the first half, saw its offense flounder after halftime as Drexel took 17 shots to Binghamton’s nine. Neither team scored in the third quarter before Garling put the game away in the fourth.

Stephenson believes the Bearcats may have set an America East record for fewest goals allowed to a ranked opponent.

Kline made nine saves for BU to junior Dragon Bruce Bickford’s eight, while Wioncek failed to win the majority of faceoffs for the first time this year, going 2-7.