The Binghamton University baseball team is on a well-timed break from the America East this weekend — not that any of the Bearcats would call it that.
Binghamton (15-21-0, 7-5 AE) climbed to third place last weekend with a sweep of the visiting Albany Great Danes, building momentum with a five-game win streak and wins in seven of its last nine as it enters the second half of the conference schedule. Binghamton’s next five games, including three at home, however, are against non-conference opponents — the last time they’ll meet a non-AE opponent in the 2008 regular season.
“At this point, with the intensity you go through in conference weekends, it’s nice to get a break in the middle if you’re gonna have a break: three weeks on, one week off, three weeks on,” said BU head coach Tim Sinicki. “It won’t do anything to kill our momentum if we continue to improve and get better. I just look at it as an opportunity to get some guys some work, an opportunity to play a few different guys maybe, do something you don’t do during conference games.”
So far, the Bearcats have been on track without the intensity of AE play, defeating the host Le Moyne Dolphins 12-10 on Wednesday. Freshman third baseman Brian Ivan homered twice and drove in five for the Bearcats. Senior captain Ryan James also homered. Ivan leads BU and is 10th in the conference with a .350 batting average.
The Bearcats trailed 8-6 entering the eighth inning, but as they have on so many recent occasions, found a way to rally, putting up a five-spot in the frame.
“It’s everybody on the team picking each other up,” James said. “It’s just surprising to me, unbelievable how we do fight back.”
Binghamton hosts a doubleheader with the New Jersey Institute of Technology Highlanders in its next game, scheduled for noon Saturday at Varsity Field.
NJIT has struggled this season with a 3-34 record, a fact that does not encourage the Bearcats to take the Highlanders lightly.
“We just keep the mentality that we need to go out there and pretty much bury any team we need to play,” said BU senior ace Zach Groh. “We can’t underestimate any team that we play from now on. We need to go out there and just win. This weekend’s going to be a good test for us.”
The Bearcats travel to Newark, N.J., for another doubleheader with NJIT at 2 p.m. Sunday. Binghamton hosts Le Moyne at home at 4 p.m. on Wednesday before heading to Vermont next weekend to resume conference play.
The Dolphins (20-17) saw a nine-game win streak snapped by BU on Wednesday.
Though the Bearcats have been winning, a lot of those victories have come late and narrowly. The best sign Binghamton could offer that it’s ready to keep climbing the standings and possibly win a second consecutive AE regular season title would be to get ahead early.
“The one thing we really struggle with is execution early in the game, and it seems like when we get later in the games, our focus goes up,” Groh said. “We know, alright, we got to get this bunt down, we’ve got to advance this runner. We’ve done a pretty good job of not giving up … hopefully we can start doing those things always.”