Sometimes in sports, the result of a game can almost seem preordained. When Joe Torre’s Yankee teams of the late 1990s took the field, you were sure they were going to win. Bill Russell’s Celtics: Who would bet against them? Roger Federer and Serena Williams in 2007 and 2002: shoe-ins.

For about 15 years, it has been that way with Boston University women’s tennis. Since 1994, Boston has won the America East every season.

However, look at the other examples of dominance: The Yankees stopped dominating when revenue sharing happened. Bill Russell: Age reared its ugly head. Roger Federer and Serena Williams: Rafael Nadal and a ragtag group of Belgian and Russian tennis players got to their runs of dominance eventually. So, who can stop the Boston Terriers?

Enter Binghamton University.

Between the men’s basketball fiasco and the women’s basketball first-round loss in the conference tournament, one very pleasant story has been flying under the radar: Binghamton’s women’s tennis team has been playing some exceptional tennis this season, and the train does not appear to be stopping anytime soon.

Binghamton began its spring season with a 7-0 thrashing of a Seton Hall team it beat 6-1 last year, with no player dropping a set. Showing further progress from a year ago, Binghamton comfortably disposed of Army 5-2, a team it beat 4-3 last year and lost to two years ago. Binghamton also defeated Cornell 4-3 and defeated Rutgers 6-1 — the same Scarlet Knight team it lost to 7-0 two years ago.

A 7-0 February resulted in a team milestone: Binghamton was ranked 68th in the country on March 2. To reference Boston, the Terriers were not ranked on that date, and still are not (The Intercollegiate Tennis Association updates its rankings weekly on Tuesdays). Boston was ranked 59th to finish last season; Binghamton’s March 2 ranking is not far from that number. In fact, Boston to this point has not had the season that Binghamton has had: Binghamton sits at 7-2, while Boston is 6-7. Granted, Boston has lost six of their 13 matches to ranked teams (Harvard, Yale twice, Miami, the College of Charleston and Brown), but the records are what they are nonetheless. One of its wins was over the same Cornell team the Bearcats defeated. Another was 5-2 over UMBC, a team Binghamton beat by an identical score a year ago.

Binghamton’s team depth has put itself in a position to potentially unseat Boston for the first time since 1994. Lauren Bates is 20-match wins from the all-time Binghamton record, and has been a rock at the top singles position all year long. Bates, Anna Edelman, Yulia Smirnova and Jillian Santos have predominantly played in the top four singles positions and thrived. Santos and Smirnova have each gone 7-2 in duals, Bates has gone 8-1 and Edelman has yet to lose. Indeed, Edelman’s stellar play has seen her rise to a ranking of No. 120 nationally, and the 59th spot in doubles with teammate Marina Bykovskaya. Bykovskaya and Basak Gone have played well in the fifth and sixth singles spots, and have not been without help. When one has gone down, Emma Leibowicz and senior Danyelle Shapiro have stepped in admirably in their place.

With the conference tournament 46 days away, it is fair to wonder: Can Binghamton finally beat Boston? It is only right that one calls the Terriers the favorite: they are the 16-time defending champions. Indeed, the last time Boston failed to win the America East, Derek Jeter and Kobe Bryant had never played for the Yankees and Lakers, Pete Sampras had not validated his status as a perennial contender for Grand Slams, Serena Williams was an unknown 12-year-old tennis player in Compton and the Colts did not know who to start at quarterback. It has been a while.

However, the early returns for Binghamton this season, as they build around an outstanding group of players that loses just Shapiro to graduation, have been extremely encouraging for the Bearcats. Boston may be the favorite because of its success of the past 16 seasons, but Binghamton’s fantastic start to the 2010 season has opened the door to the possibility of a new champion coming into town.

Maybe the America East’s Federer just got its Nadal.