Coming off a difficult season, the Binghamton men’s lacrosse team started out its 2021 season with a bang. The Bearcats rolled past NJIT Saturday afternoon, earning an 11-5 victory. Binghamton (1-0, 1-0 America East) was led by senior attack Justin Roderka who scored five goals in the game.

“It was great to see a lot of guys contributing in today’s win,” said Binghamton head coach Kevin McKeown. “I was happy today with the way our guys found [Roderka] today.”

In his first season at Binghamton last year, Roderka led the Bearcats in goals with 12. His five goals in this year’s season opener represented nearly half of the team’s offense. In total, four different Bearcats scored in the win over the Highlanders (0-3, 0-1 AE).

“It was important, but it wasn’t necessarily surprising,” McKeown said. “We know what [Roderka] is capable of and we got to see that in the last couple games of 2020 so I’m definitely pleased.”

NJIT scored the first goal of the game, but Roderka responded with an equalizer five minutes later, the first of three unanswered. With 10 seconds remaining in the quarter, NJIT scored its second goal of the game, only for senior attack William Talbott-Shere to respond in the waning seconds and give Binghamton a 4-2 lead after one period.

The Highlanders scored just two more goals in the first half, with Binghamton recording four, and the Bearcats headed into the locker room with an 8-4 lead at halftime.

Both teams went on a dry spell in a scoreless third quarter. The Bearcats took six shots with five being saved and one hitting the crossbar, while the Highlanders took nine shots with one save being made by redshirt sophomore goalie Teddy Dolan.

“It was definitely clear that we thought we could have come out better,” McKeown said. “I think their goalie probably made a few saves, and I think our shot selection maybe wasn’t the greatest there. I think coming out of halftime we have to be a little bit better, a little bit sharper there.”

The Bearcats were able to solidify their lead in the fourth quarter, They started the final frame just as they did the second, scoring three unanswered goals. Junior attack Daniel MacKinney scored twice, and sophomore midfielder Thomas Greenblatt scored one to complete his hat trick.

“[Greenblatt] is great, he’s a pretty calming presence in the midfield,” McKeown said. ”We have a lot of faith in his decision-making so it was great to see him put three on the board and have only one turnover.”

NJIT scored one more goal late in the game, but Binghamton was able to pick up a strong 11-5 win to open the season.

“Positives I think are our shooting percentage,” McKeown said. “It was good. We scored 11 on 32 shots. I was happy about that, and we assisted seven out of 11 of our goals … I think moving forward we just have to be better at clearing the ball. We had 11 failed clears and that’s going to be something that will bite us if we don’t fix it moving forward.”

This season, Binghamton will play a nine-game schedule consisting of only conference opponents. As usual, the AE playoffs will consist of the conference’s top-four finishers.

Next up, the Bearcats will take on UMBC in their second game of the season. Faceoff is set for 1 p.m. on Saturday, March 13 at the Bearcats Sports Complex in Vestal, New York.