The men’s soccer team has faced a considerable setback in its quest to win a third consecutive America East regular season championship.
Binghamton University (8-4-3, 3-2-0 AE) lost at UMBC (6-6-2, 1-3-1 AE) 1-0 on Wednesday when Chris Williams headed a ball past Bearcats goalie Jason Stenta for the game’s only goal.
In the 65th minute, John Paul Waraska crossed a ball to senior LJ Pijnenburg on the far post. Pijnenburg headed the ball to Williams on the near post, who scored the decisive goal.
The Bearcats were the aggressors for much of the match, taking 14 shots to UMBC’s nine.
In the 30th minute, Binghamton forwards Cameron Keith and Cody Germain each hit the goal post in the span of a minute. The Bearcats were also unlucky in the last few minutes of the game, when Keith had two opportunities that missed the mark.
BU head coach Paul Marco thought his team dominated UMBC and deserved a win.
“It’s one of those games,” Marco said. “Soccer is funny. You can dominate the other team and still lose. I thought in the first half, we should have been winning the game by four.”
Still, the Bearcats lost focus in a crucial sequence and surrendered a goal against the run of play.
“Maybe there was about a minute and a half in the match where we were poor, and that was where they got their goal,” Marco said. “The ball was served from right side into far post. Two of their guys were open and waiting for the cross, so it wasn’t just one guy who made a mistake defending.”
Binghamton had five shots on goal, not including the two that hit the post. What the pipes couldn’t stop, UMBC’s experienced keeper Stephen King took care of.
The Bearcats now sit in third place in the conference standings behind Boston University and Albany. Both of those teams, however, have four points more than Binghamton. The Bearcats have to hope for the Terriers and Great Danes to lose games in order to win the regular season title and a first round buy in the playoffs.
“I felt bad for our guys because they certainly played well enough to earn more [points] than we got,” Marco said.