Two hundred ninety four days. That’s how long it had been since Binghamton’s men’s soccer team ended its 2006 season in an NCAA loss to Harvard.

The layoff didn’t appear to affect the defending AE champion Bearcats (2-0-0), who rolled through the Radford Highlander Classic this weekend en route to a No. 5 spot in the Northeast regional NSCAA rankings. By defeating host Radford (1-1-0) and No. 30 Winthrop (1-1-0) by 1-0 scores, the team also earned votes in the College Soccer News National Poll.

Headed into the weekend, Binghamton had questions about its offense because of last graduated players. Against Radford on Saturday, a pair of newcomers to connected for the team’s first goal of the season. Junior transfer Darren McAllister found freshman Josh Sailar for the tie-breaking goal early in the second half.

‘The ball got played to the end line,’ Sailar said. ‘Darren got around it and whipped it into the box, and I was able to put it into the net.’

Binghamton was called for 16 fouls and four yellow cards, including two to senior back Adam Chavez. Chavez, a 2006 Northeast Regional All-American, was ejected with five minutes remaining in the game and was suspended for the matchup against Winthrop. The Bearcats had to play down a man until the final whistle.

‘[We weren’t] used to the referees down south,’ said senior Matt Narode. ‘They didn’t put up with as much and we didn’t shut up when we should have.’

Without Chavez, its top defender, Binghamton faced a formidable challenge in the Winthrop Eagles, a team that features a talented striker tandem of Saidi Isaac and Daniel Revivo. Isaac was the preseason Big South conference player of the year, while Revivo had scored four goals in Winthrop’s season opener.

‘I think when you face a team like Winthrop, they’re very dynamic,’ said Binghamton head coach Paul Marco. ‘You have to have players who understand positioning and how players cover for each other and help each other out. When one of their players got the ball, we had two other players close by.’

In the 17th minute, Narode received a high pass from Justin Leskow and buried the ball in the top-left corner.

‘It was spectacular,’ Marco said. ‘It was a world-class goal.’

‘It was probably one of those goals that was more luck than anything else,’ Narode said. ‘I don’t think I’ll get many more of those this year.’

The Bearcats withstood a barrage of Winthrop scoring chances in the second period. Bearcat sophomore goalie Jason Stenta made three tough saves to preserve the win.

‘Stenta definitely made some good saves against Radford, and made two or three world-class saves against Winthrop,’ Marco said.

Stenta was named the Most Outstanding Defensive Player of the Radford tournament, as well as the America East Player of the Week for the third time in his career.

The rest of the America East had a successful weekend. AE teams are 9-6-2 so far.

‘That’s what we’re trying to shoot for every year, for one of our teams to get an at-large. That’s why we upped our schedule ‘ to put us in a position that, if we don’t win the conference tournament, we’ll get an at-large bid,’ Marco said.

Pulling rank: The men’s soccer team defeated No. 30 Winthrop on Sunday. It is the first nationally ranked team Binghamton has defeated since No. 15 Fairleigh Dickinson in the 2003 NCAA tournament.

The men’s lacrosse team defeated No. 6 Albany in 2007, and No. 8 Towson and No. 17 Hobart in 2006.