The weather and interest in college basketball are not the only things that have been warming up substantially during the month of March.

The Binghamton University men’s tennis team has been red-hot this month after struggling through a chilly February. After going 2-1 in match play this past weekend, the Bearcats improved their March record to 4-1 and their overall record to 6-6.

Binghamton’s first victory of the weekend came on Friday over Cornell, 4-3. The highlight of the match was senior captain Faisal Mohamed’s hard-fought victory over Cornell junior Kyle Doppelt out of first singles. After dropping the first set 6-4, Mohamed battled back and took the next two sets 7-6, 6-4.

Mohamed’s victory clinched the win for Binghamton, ending a losing streak against Cornell that had spanned 19 matches and 31 years. The victory over the Big Red also marked the first time that Binghamton beat an Ivy League school as a Division I team. Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown and Harvard have all defeated Binghamton this season.

For BU head coach Adam Cohen, who was unaware of the losing streak prior to the match and describes himself as “not a big stat guy,” the fact that his team finally beat an Ivy League team was much more important.

“That felt good,” Cohen said. “One of the goals was to try to beat one of those Ivy League teams we had on our schedule.”

The next day probably did not feel as good when St. John’s stormed past the Bearcats 6-1. The lone Binghamton point came courtesy of senior Gregoire Berner out of sixth singles. Berner struggled to a 7-6 first set victory before coasting through the second set 6-0. Binghamton lost the doubles point to the Red Storm but sophomore Moshe Levy and freshman Sven Vloedgraven, who were teaming for the first time ever, were able to win their match by the margin of 8-5.

Even though his team lost to the Red Storm, Cohen was pleased with their performance and effort as he contributed the loss to St. John’s more to “not winning the points when we needed to win them and obviously that can make or break.”

The Bearcats quickly bounced back the following day, posting a 5-1 victory over Temple. Vloedgraven played out of first singles and dominated Lawrence Carpio 6-0, 6-1. Berner notched another singles victory under his belt, this time out of third singles, with a commanding 7-5, 6-3 victory over junior Eduardo Saavedra. Freshman Arnav Jain also was victorious as he posted a 6-4, 6-1 victory over junior Ricardo Velazquez out of second singles. Jain has been sensational in his first college season, going 8-2 thus far in singles play. Before the loss at St. John’s, Jain had won seven consecutive duals. The teams did not play doubles duals due to time constraints.

The dominating victory over Temple was highlighted by the fact that four of Cohen’s top regulars — Mohamed, Levy, junior Sebastian Dietz and senior Alex Dobrin — did not play. The rest was well deserved and needed as Mohamed and Dietz have both been hurt at points this season, Dobrin spent the offseason rehabbing a shoulder injury and Levy struggled through injuries almost the entire season last year. The radically different lineup also gave Cohen an opportunity to evaluate players he hasn’t seen play enough.

“We gave some guys that hadn’t had a chance to play an opportunity to play and they did fine,”Cohen said. “[This] showed we can move guys up in the lineup and … they can compete at the top of the lineup.”

While the Bearcats’ recent hot play is certainly a step in the right direction, Cohen cautioned that there is still a decent amount of season left and progress still to be made.

“We’re still ways away from playing our best tennis,” said Cohen. “But winning breeds confidence.”

The Bearcats will host their first home match of the season when they take on St. Bonaventure at the Binghamton Tennis Center at 6 p.m. on Sunday.