With the Binghamton women’s basketball team trailing Stony Brook by two in the fourth quarter last Wednesday night, senior guard Kai Moon was forced to leave the game because of a bloody nose after committing a foul. The game ended in a tough 67-60 loss for the Bearcats, but Moon returned on Saturday in New Hampshire. She finished the game with 25 points and 11 rebounds, propelling the Bearcats (14-6, 3-4 America East) to a 63-53 win over the Wildcats (6-13, 3-4 AE).

“It felt really good, it felt good that the team finished this one out today too,” Moon said. “I don’t think I, offensively, had that much of an impact toward the end. I take my hat off to [senior guard] Carly [Boland] and [senior guard Karlee Krchnavi] … That’s how good we can be when we’re all clicking on all cylinders and playing a full quarter of basketball.”

Moon left the game against Stony Brook with a team-high 21 points, and the Bearcats were unable to overcome the Seawolves (19-1, 7-0 AE), whose one loss came to No. 21 Arkansas.

“We lost by seven, that’s easy for [Moon],” said Binghamton head basketball coach Bethann Shapiro Ord. “It definitely was hard, but I was proud of the girls, their fight. It was kinda frustrating due to some of the things that happened. It was really hard to get into a flow with so many kids in foul trouble, and then [Moon] going out, it was pretty difficult at the end and they just kept battling.”

While the team wasn’t able to close out the Stony Brook game in Moon’s absence, they were able to support her in the final quarter of the win over UNH. Two fourth-quarter 3-pointers by Boland and a double-double recorded by Krchnavi helped Binghamton close out a victory.

“People were face-guarding [Moon] and double-teaming her and knocking her around, but [Krchnavi] came up big knocking down shots, [Boland] hit some big ones,” Shapiro Ord said. “[Moon] knows that her teammates are going to be there for her, so when they started knocking down shots it alleviated a little bit more pressure off of [Moon].”

Krchnavi scored 14 points in the game, including hitting four 3-pointers on six attempts.

“Coach always emphasizes, ‘Be shot ready,’ but today I think it was all about just hitting the right person at the right time and then shooting the ball,” Krchnavi said. “Sometimes we pass up those opportunities when they’re wide open, and them going in felt good, so I kept shooting.”

Krchnavi collected 11 rebounds in the game and tied with Moon for the game-high. She, along with sophomore forward Annie Ramil and junior forward Olivia Ramil and junior forward Kaylee Wasco, anchored the BU defense that held the Wildcats to just 53 points.

“The biggest thing is we didn’t want to lose focus on transition defense,” Shapiro Ord said. “You never want to let up on that and that’s the easiest to let up on. The focus was just getting stops.”

With the conference season nearing its midpoint, the Bearcats sit at 3-4 in AE play, in a three-way tie with Vermont and Albany for fourth place in the league. The top four teams will host a quarterfinal game in the AE Tournament in March.

“I’m happy we won, because getting road wins in the conference is tough, but I just know what we have in us and I know we gotta just keep tightening it up,” Shapiro Ord said. “It’s on. It’s the most important part of the season.”

Next up for Binghamton is a home game against the winless Hartford Hawks. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 29 from the Events Center in Vestal, New York.