Coming off a win against Quinnipiac, the Binghamton women’s lacrosse team carried that momentum into Wednesday’s game against Colgate and had its highest-scoring game of the season, downing the Raiders (3-4) 12-8 at home.

“We’ve been making sure in practice that we’re producing those number of goals or goal expectations throughout the course of our seven versus seven play, and it’s carried over into the last two games,” said Binghamton head coach Stephanie Allen. “This is our standard now.”

The Bearcats (3-5) led for almost the entire game, except for a period early in the first half. Colgate came within two goals of Binghamton in the second half, but the Bearcats staved off the Raiders before they could take the lead.

A goal scored by Colgate freshman midfielder Cara O’Reilly with just under nine minutes left cut the score to 10-8 in favor of the Bearcats. During this time, the Raiders could have tied up the score, but junior attack Paige Volkmann scored an important goal to put BU up by three with seven-and-a-half minutes remaining. Sophomore attack Sidra Morchower secured the game with a free position goal with three minutes left, distancing Binghamton from its competition.

Offensively, Volkmann and Morchower were the leaders for BU, netting four goals apiece. Volkmann also had two assists, one ground ball and one caused turnover. She is now fifth in the America East in goals with 18.

“We put a lot of pressure on our attackers to shoot more in competitions, to come up with more production from them,” Allen said. “Our midfielders have carried a lot of the load in the beginning part of the season. The last couple of days our attackers have answered the bell. Just those two in particular have really created opportunities for themselves.”

Senior attack Olivia Batista was also a force for the team, scoring twice in the game. Batista now has scored five in the last two games. However, she left the field in the second half of the game because of an apparent injury.

Other goal scorers for BU were senior midfielders Amelia Biancardi and Alissa Franze, who each had a goal apiece.

On the other side of the field, senior goalie Taylor Passuello had 10 saves.

“We talked a lot about the defensive stops, especially in the second half,” Allen said. “Our defensive unit started to buckle down, and [Passuello] was a big part of that. Our whole defensive unit was following the game plan and really pushed their foot down on the gas and didn’t let up.”

In total, the Bearcats had 15 caused turnovers while Colgate had just six. Defensively, freshman defender Paige Alletzhauser and senior defender Alexa Franze led the charge with two caused turnovers each. Alletzhauser also had three ground balls.

“We talked about playing to our strengths, not letting up or playing safe in any moment,” Allen said. “We’ve had 15 caused turnovers in the last two games. I think that really speaks to the level of play and effort that we see from our girls, especially from half to half.”

Last year, BU narrowly lost to Colgate 7-6, so the Bearcats were able to avenge themselves on their home turf. This is the first game of the season that the team has won at home.

“We’re finally protecting our home turf,” Allen said. “It’s good to see them come up with that win here at home.”

The next game for the Bearcats is uncertain, as they were supposed to take on Harvard on Saturday, but the Ivy League has canceled all of its spring sports because of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. With the game now canceled, BU will not take on another competitor until its America East opener on Saturday, March 21. First draw control against Hartford is set for 2 p.m. from Al-Marzook Field in West Hartford, Connecticut.