After defeating Vermont 11-10 in overtime last week, the Binghamton men’s lacrosse team extended its winning streak to four games with a 21-10 win over UMBC on Saturday afternoon. After a back and forth start, BU captured the lead late in the first quarter and didn’t look back. Nine Bearcats combined for 21 goals — tying the program record.

“First off, I think our competition level was really high,” said Binghamton head coach Kevin McKeown. “We did a great job in practice the week prior, and I think it carried over to the game. I just thought we competed really hard and made up for some of our mistakes with that, but the offense played really well.”

UMBC [4-5, 232 America East (AE)] won the first face-off, UMBC scored the first goal of the match off of a rebound. Binghamton (6-5, 4-1 AE) bounced back quickly with a two goals — one from freshman midfielder Jack Mellen, and another from junior attack Matthew Keegan. However, the Retrievers then scoring two consecutive goals to retake the lead at 3-2. This lead was short-lived as the Bearcats ended the quarter with two more goals from Keegan and senior attack Ethan Insinga to bring the score to 4-3.

“I thought the guys were just playing really, really, selflessly,” McKeown said. “So, I’m excited to see that, and hopefully, we can continue to do that as we move forward.”

Binghamton and UMBC traded goals to begin the second half. With the Bearcats now leading 5-4, they scored four unanswered goals. This started with junior attack Gage Adams finding the back of the net. Twelve seconds later, freshman attack Andrew Girolamo got the ball from senior face-off Ross Chazanow, and put the ball away for BU’s seventh goal of the game. With 38 seconds left in the half, Girolamo fed the ball to Keegan for his third goal of the game as he completed his hat trick. Adams capped off the first half scoring with another goal to give Binghamton a 9-4 going into halftime.

“It’s great to spread [the ball] around like that,” McKeown said. “[Girolamo] is a freshman who has started getting [the ball] more and more. In the past, three to four games, he did a great job feeding. So, I thought the offense, was moving the ball really well and seeing the field well.”

Coming out of halftime, for the first 10 minutes, BU and UMBC traded goals as the Bearcats retained a 13-7 lead. Binghamton then went on a three-goal run as Keegan, Adams and senior attack/midfielder Liam Ferris all scored to bring it to 16-7. With two seconds left in the quarter, UMBC got one past junior goalie Connor Winters, ending the third quarter trailing 16-8.

“We tied our program record for goals with 21, [with] 13 of those being assisted,” McKeown said. “I think percentage-wise, it was the most amount of assisted goals we’ve had this year. We moved the ball really well and, the guys did a great job of finding [each other].”

During the fourth quarter, with all the momentum, BU continued to control the game. Binghamton scored the first five goals of the quarter to make it a 21-8 game. UMBC scored twice in the final minutes to make it 21-10, but it was too little, too late, as the Bearcats secured a dominant 21-10 victory.

“The unselfishness offensively, how we passed it — that’ll [continue] to be a focus,” McKeown said. “I think we have to tighten up a little bit defensively — and we haven’t watched a lot of Bryant yet — but certainly know that they’re a really good team. [Bryant] had beaten us twice last year — once in the playoffs, so I think it’ll be a battle and certainly a big one to be able to get to potentially start secure post-season birth.”

Nine different Bearcats put points on the board, including five with multiple goals and four earning hat tricks. With the victory, Binghamton remains in a tie for first place with two games left in AE play.

BU will host Bryant for senior day on Saturday, April 20. First face-off is set for 12 p.m. at the Bearcats Sports Complex in Vestal, New York.