It was a dark night for Binghamton University’s men’s wrestling team Friday night, but its star junior remained the shining light in a 37-3 loss to No. 19 Hofstra.

The Bearcats’ (5-5, 0-1 Colonial Athletic Association) only win came from 184-pound junior Joshua Patterson in the first bout.

BU was coming off a performance at the Penn State Open in which they had six wrestlers place. However, after the first bout, they were not in this match. On the other hand, the Pride (3-1, 1-0 CAA) have won 61 straight matches in conference.

“We were wrestling one of the top teams in the country,” said Binghamton head coach Pat Popolizio. “We’re going to learn from our mistakes and it’s going to prepare us for the end of the year, trying to get guys into nationals and place in the nationals.”

The match opened well for the Bearcats against their nationally ranked opponent. Patterson, ranked 15th by InterMat and sixth by Amateur Wrestling News, beat CAA Rookie of the Month Ben Clymer, 4-2, to give BU the early lead. Patterson is now 19-2 on the year, easily the leader on the team.

Patterson, named one of the Wrestlers of the Month by the CAA, is now in his third year and his coach sees him as an example for his team.

“Josh Patterson wasn’t wrestling his best,” Popolizio said, “but he still found a way to win when he got in that tough match, that tough situation. He felt the pressure, and I feel like last year the outcome would’ve been different and this year he toughed it out and got a good, quality win against a pretty good kid.

“He sets the tone in a lot of ways. He wrestles with a lot of confidence, and I’m hoping that rubs off on some of the other guys, and they understand what winning at a high level is about … We need more of that.”

After Patterson, BU had no success against the Pride. Hofstra wrestler Joe Fagiano, the 197-pound sophomore ranked 16th by InterMat, immediately responded to the opening bout loss by beating freshman Carl Korpi in a 15-1 decision. The closest the Bearcats would come after that would be 149-pound freshman Matthew Kaylor’s 4-1 loss to fellow freshman P.J. Gillespie.

The Bearcats’ loss was no surprise, as they were facing the team ranked No. 19 in the nation. However, what bothered coach Popolizio was the way his team lost.

“[We were] definitely a little sluggish, not our best performance we’ve had,” he said. “We did not compete, obviously we were outmatched a lot of matches. A lot of times even if we’re losing, we’re competing and I feel like we didn’t do that tonight, which is not what our program’s about.

“I definitely thought we could’ve fought a lot harder in some of the matches that we got beat in. We didn’t wrestle with an attitude; we just kind of went out there and just [saw] what happened, and bad things are going to happen if you have that kind of mentality.”

Despite the overwhelming loss, Popolizio wasn’t worried going into the tri-meet in New Jersey on Saturday against Princeton University, Delaware State University and the United States Merchant Marine Academy. He felt his team has enough experience and maturity to handle the loss.

“These guys know how to rebound,” Popolizio said. “We’ve practiced, we train hard and we’re competing with the best teams in the country. They know that, that’s one thing they understand, that we’re up against a high level of competition.”