After Saturday’s victory over Vermont, Cameron Keith strutted around the field draped in a Scottish flag. Perhaps he should have worn the British flag instead.
English-born defender Mark Wood found Keith for a header midway through the second half to lead Binghamton University’s men’s soccer team (8-3-3, 3-1-0 AE) over the University of Vermont (6-3-5, 2-1-1 AE) 1-0. The televised match was the first sellout in Bearcats Sports Complex history, with a record 2,534 fans in the stands.
In the 62nd minute, Wood kicked a cross into the middle of the restricted box, where Keith headed the ball past UVM keeper Roger Scully into the lower left corner of the goal.
“It was a great ball in,” Keith said. “It was a striker’s dream. All I had to do was help it on its way. Maybe I should have worn the Union Jack.”
The Union Jack, also known as the Union Flag, is the national flag of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
“I’m not too sure what to think about it because I’m English,” joked Wood. “I think it might be my goal as well.”
It was the first goal the Bearcats put past Scully in the run of play since September 2005, not counting a penalty kick in the 2006 championship. Scully was named the 2007 championship’s Most Valuable Player after playing superbly against the Bearcats in the final.
“He’s a really good keeper,” Keith said. “He stopped me on a few occasions in both games last year. It was great to get one past him tonight.”
But Saturday’s goalkeeper matchup was won by Binghamton’s Jason Stenta, who made three saves in the shutout. In the last 20 minutes of the match, Stenta made two critical stops to preserve the victory.
A few minutes after Keith’s goal, Stenta stopped a cross and dropped it on dangerous ground near two Vermont players. However, he recovered and regained control of the ball.
“He got taken under and he bobbled the ball, but he was like a cat,” said Binghamton head coach Paul Marco. “Like my cat Giorgio, he was quick to the ball.”
Giorgio, unsurprisingly, is named after legendary Italian striker, Giorgio Chinaglia.
In the 81st minute, Catamount junior T.J. Gore shot a quick strike to the upper left corner of the net after a Vermont fast break. Stenta made a spectacular save, and the Catamounts were subsequently forced to play five forwards in an attempt to even up the score. Scully even left the goal to play midfielder in the final minutes, but though the Catamounts had balls drop in Binghamton’s box in the final minutes, the Bearcats defense found a way to clear all of them.
“The ball was bouncing around in the box, and you never know if someone is going to toe-poke it when there are so many people in the box,” Stenta said. “Our defenders did well in dealing with the balls and clearing them so I didn’t have to make the saves.”
Both teams started the game with energetic play. The first half was mostly even, but the Bearcats began playing their best ball after halftime.
“It was tough for any team, home or away, to come out and not play tonight,” Marco said. “The crowd was fantastic.”
The match renewed one of the most explosive rivalries in the America East. Binghamton and Vermont met in the conference finals in 2006 and 2007, splitting the games. Vermont coach Jesse Cormier was Marco’s assistant at West Virginia University, and the teams know each other’s tendencies inside and out.
The Bearcats now look forward to an easier slate of games to end the conference season, facing the bottom four teams in the conference standings.