The Bearcats are out to defend their America East championship and starting the year off with three wins is the best way to start.

This past Saturday, the Binghamton University men’s tennis team defeated Brown University, 5-2, in its opening dual meet of the season. Fresh off a 7-0 victory against Bryant University and a 6-1 victory over Boston University, Brown got off to a quick start taking two of the three doubles matches, earning the doubles point. The Bearcats lone doubles win came at the No. 1 spot where junior Sven Vloedgraven, the top-ranked player in the Northeast region, teamed up with reigning AE Rookie of the Year sophomore Gilbert Wong to defeat Brown’s Charlie Posner and Kendrick Au. Posner and Au won the Northeast Intercollegiate doubles title this year, and the team earned the No. 3 seed in the ITA regional tournament.

Binghamton rebounded after losing the doubles point by winning five of the six singles matches. This was a rematch of the Feb. 28 match last season that Binghamton won, 4-3.

“It was a good win for us,” said head coach Adam Cohen. “Any time you can go on the road, especially against an Ivy opponent and beat them on their court, it is always a good win. We went there a year ago and to go back there a year later and do it again really shows the growth of our program in a short period of time.”

The Bearcats had strong performances all around against a tough opponent, as the Bears were able to force three of the six singles matches into decisive third sets.

Vloedgraven continued his exceptional play at the No. 1 spot defeating Nathaniel Gorham, the Bears’ lone senior, 6-2, 7-6.

Wong, who tallied 31 wins at singles as a freshman, got off to a good start at fourth singles defeating Tim Klanke, 6-4, 6-1.

Binghamton freshman Ruben Devos also contributed at sixth singles by knocking off Posner, 6-3, 1-6, 10-7.

At the No. 2 spot, Bearcats senior Moshe Levy defeated Mike Hill in what proved to be the clinching victory for the Bearcats. Beating the Bears is not unfamiliar to Levy as this is the second straight year that he was able to lock up a victory for Binghamton against Brown.

The Bearcats continued play on Sunday, taking on Dartmouth and Army, and defeated both opponents, 5-2.

BU won all but one of Sunday’s double matches and dominated singles, winning eight of the 12 matches. The loss for Dartmouth was its first of the season and drops them to 4-1.

On Sunday, many Bearcats saw their strong play from Saturday’s match carry over and Arvan Jain picked up two more victories at singles, improving his record to 14-3 overall and 3-0 in duals.

“Arnav played well,” said Cohen. “He goes home during the break to India and he doesn’t have a chance to play all that much. He played really well since he has not played any really competitive matches since November and the same can be said for a lot of the other guys as well.”

Devos continued to take advantage of his playing time on Sunday earning a victory at doubles against Dartmouth and a win at singles against Army.

“Ruben played well this fall and I wanted to give him a chance at sixth singles to see how he would match up,” said coach Cohen. “He played well against Brown, playing better at singles than at doubles, and the next day against Dartmouth he played better at doubles than at singles. And in his final match he played pretty complete at both sides.”

“Moving forward, we are excited,” said Cohen. “We have got some tough matches this weekend. Cornell is a good team and our loss to them last year will definitely be a motivating factor for this weekend. But the larger goal remains the same, getting better each week and working on what we need to do to make sure we are playing our best tennis by the end of the spring season.”

The Bearcats next play Cornell, Marist and Georgetown this weekend in Ithaca.