It may have worked for Albany a season ago, but losing all four games to open America East play was hardly what the Binghamton University baseball team wanted to do over the weekend.

The Bearcats (7-19, 0-4 AE) were swept in doubleheaders by Stony Brook Seawolves on Saturday and Sunday, as different things went wrong in each game. The Albany Great Danes were swept on opening weekend a year ago, but rebounded to win the America East Tournament.

“From results standpoint, you don’t want to lose four games … in a weekend, but we saw some good things,” said BU head coach Tim Sinicki.

The good things came sporadically and, seemingly never at the same time. On Saturday, Binghamton faced one of the best 1-2 starting pitcher combinations in the conference in Tom Koehler and Gary Novakowski and scored a combined 12 runs off them, but were unable to hold late-inning leads in both games, falling 11-9 and 5-4.

Binghamton trailed Koehler and the Seawolves 7-1 through seven innings before scoring eight runs in the eighth. The rally was highlighted by a three-run home run from Pete Bregartner, a Long Island native, but quickly forgotten the next inning, when Stony Brook came back with four runs of its own off BU relievers Khalid Afify and Dan Steers.

Zach Groh, Binghamton’s No. 1 starting pitcher, gave up two runs in the first inning and seven total in seven innings.

“I’m really taking it tough right now,” said Groh, a captain. “I really want us to do well my senior year, I want to get [to the championship] again. Last weekend, the pitchers did real well, this weekend we had some big hits and the pitching didn’t do well.”

Left-hander Jeff Dennis turned in a strong starting pitching performance on the mound in game two against Novakowski, last year’s AE Pitcher of the Year, but surrendered two solo home runs in the sixth inning, which erased a 4-3 lead.

Dennis had given up just one hit over the previous four innings and had showed Sinicki no indication he was tiring, but the Bearcats have also yet to find relievers to turn to behind Afify and Greg Lane.

“We don’t have that bridge guy right now, from a starter to a closer,” Sinicki said. “I’m not interested in using a closer for six outs when we have so many games in a weekend.”

The Seawolves won 7-6 and 5-2 Sunday on the strength of two big innings. Stony Brook scored seven runs off Binghamton starter Gio Yannuzzi in the third inning of game one to take a 7-3 lead. Three shutout innings from Morgan Smith in relief allowed the Bearcats to pull within one.

In game two, Murphy Smith allowed five runs in the fourth, ending a scoreless tie and sealing the Seawolves’ sweep. The Bearcats stranded a total of 18 runners in 16 innings on the day.

“It’s terribly disappointing, playing a team like that, that finished second behind us last year,” said Ryan James, another captain. “I think we’ve already lost almost as many games as last year … it’s pretty terrible.”

The Bearcats went 17-5 in conference play last season to win the regular season title.

James did his part over the weekend, going 9-for-16 with four RBI, including a solo home run to left-center on a 1-2 hanging slider that Novakowski left over the middle in the first inning of Saturday’s night cap.

The majority of the Bearcats offensive production has come from its top four hitters: Bregartner, James, Joe Charron and Kyle Klee (another captain). Beyond those four, freshman Brian Ivan is the only Bearcat batting over .250.

But as was the case this weekend, when Binghamton’s hitting has been present, its fielding and pitching have slid, and vice versa.

“We’ve got to mesh, we got to come together as a team,” James said. “If it’s not one thing it’s another. It’s us coming together as a team and becoming one that’s the best. And if somebody does make a mistake, it’s the next person picking them up.”

James said he was considering calling a meeting before this weekend’s home opener with Maryland-Baltimore County. The first game of the four-game series is scheduled for 3 p.m. Friday at Varsity Field.