Despite all its success last season, the Binghamton University baseball team will return to Varsity Field with little fanfare for last season and a lot on the line for the current one.

BU’s home-opening, four-game series against Maryland-Baltimore County begins at 1 p.m. on Friday and will be the team’s first action in front of the BU community since clinching an America East regular season championship, before heading to Long Island for a second-place tournament finish last season. That’s the nature of the collegiate baseball season — once it gets good, most students are out of town for the summer.

Despite the homecoming’s lack of timeliness, and the team’s shortcoming in the playoffs, Binghamton deserves a hero’s welcome after its best Division I season in program history.

It won’t happen, though; last year’s home opener drew just 77 people. Capacity is 1,000.

But even if the fans come out in droves Friday, the Bearcats aren’t in a place to be thinking about last season. Another weekend like last, when Binghamton was swept by Stony Brook to open conference play, and the Bearcats might have only 2009 to think about.

Binghamton is 7-19 and in last place in the AE. Entering last week’s series at Stony Brook, the Bearcats — who have 12 new players on their 26-man roster — knew the outcome could be less than favorable against the AE preseason coaches poll’s No. 1 team, and that if it was, they would have time to bounce back.

“The team that went to regionals last year from the conference lost four straight in its opening week to us — Albany,” said BU head coach Tim Sinicki on the way to Long Island. “They figured some things out, rallied the troops and next thing you knew they were playing in the conference championship against us.”

Binghamton did lose four straight. Stony Brook totaled just seven more runs than BU over two doubleheaders, 28-21, but came out with all four wins. When one thing was going right, something else went wrong, and Binghamton fell short — the story of its spring thus far.

The Bearcats have five series with AE opponents remaining before the conference tournament begins on May 22. But the time to bounce back, the time to rally those troops is now, against a UMBC team that is in the same boat after beginning its AE season 1-3.

By now, the regular season title might already be out of reach. The Binghamton team that won it last year lost just five conference games. But a postseason berth, earned with a top four regular season finish, is all the Bearcats need.

“Anything can happen, we need to work on winning a game at a time,” said BU captain and No. 1 pitcher Zach Groh. “Hopefully we’re there at the end and can make that last little push.”

Groh, the team’s elder statesman, has the ball at 1 p.m. Friday. He was touched up for seven runs in the Stony Brook opener after leaving his pitches up, but he should be the last of BU’s worries. The veterans deserve the benefit of the doubt that they can right the ship, but they’ll still need help.

“This is like the turning point in our season … if I’m on like I can be, it’s going to be tough for [UMBC],” Groh said. “I’m sure they’re going to find a way to get their guys motivated enough, ‘cause this is a big game for them too.”

Whether what Groh and the other veterans want, a tournament title, is reconcilable with what the greener players are capable of will be answered in wins and losses this weekend.