Coming off a comeback 3-1 win against Albany last week, Binghamton suffered its first loss of America East (AE) play on Saturday in a 5-0 defeat to No. 22 Vermont during BU’s homecoming weekend. Despite only letting up one goal to the Catamounts in the first half, the Bearcats were unable to match the speed and aggressiveness of the nationally-ranked Catamounts, allowing four goals within a 15-minute timespan in the second half en route to a 5-0 loss.

“Vermont was excellent in the game,” said Binghamton head coach Paul Marco. “What’s most disappointing for us is that at halftime our conversations were about things that were going well for us in the first half. I felt like we were pretty good throughout the first period. We had a great chance to go up 1-0 and we missed the target, a free header. And then the goal we conceded in the first half was disappointing, it’s our goal kick, we just should do better in that moment.”

The match began with both Binghamton (3-7-2, 1-1-2 AE) and Vermont (9-2-2, 3-1-0 AE) jockeying for possession of the ball. The Catamounts would win the possession battle after creating and exploiting BU turnovers. At numerous points in the first half, the Bearcats attempted to break into an attack, only for their effort to be stymied and turned over by the Catamounts.

“[Vermont is] terrific in the air,” Marco said. “They have three or four players that are giants in the air. They were fast, their anticipation was really good [and] they always seemed to be on the front foot. And we caused a lot of our own mistakes by not having good starting positions. There’s only a 15-minute span where we just really struggled to deal with the amount of pressure they were applying and to handle the chaos at the moment. We weren’t up for that challenge.”

The Catamounts had several chances in the first 10 minutes and managed to break through in the 13th minute. Vermont took possession of a Binghamton goal kick, taking it into the Bearcats’ offensive zone. Then, the Catamounts launched the ball across the field to one of their forward, who broke past BU’s defense and found the back of the net, making it a 1-0 game.

“Our guys were probably a little too high,” Marco said. “We were getting away from each other a little bit and leaving too much space behind us and then we just had a guy mistrack a player. It was a very good goal, but probably we shouldn’t have been put in that situation.”

The remaining 32 minutes of the half played out much the same, with Binghamton managing to diffuse several opportunities from Vermont. In particular, in the 25th minute, the Bearcats blocked three shots from the Catamounts. The Bearcats had isolated chances, however, they were never able to maintain offensive zone possession, with the Vermont defense consistently tracking down the ball.

Vermont would continue to control the pace of play in the second half, scoring four goals in quick succession to jump out to a 5-0 lead. The Catamounts got on the board off of a corner kick in the 56th minute, with the ball being shot into the box and headed in. Vermont’s second goal came in the 62nd minute — after the Catamounts took advantage of a BU turnover and capitalized with a goal.

“I think we lost concentration in the moment, which is vital in our game,” Marco said. “You lose concentration in a moment in soccer, and bad things can happen.”

Then, just two minutes later, a Catamount forward was left uncovered by the Binghamton defense and was fed the ball into a breakaway opportunity that allowed him to find the back of the net to make it 4-0. Vermont’s final goal came in the 69th minute, as another Binghamton turnover was taken in by the Catamounts and put in the back of the net. When the clock ran out, BU found itself on the losing end of things, suffering a 5-0 defeat.

“I think for us to continue to improve this season and for us to still make a run for playoffs, our aggressiveness can’t dip,” Marco said. “That dipped in the game, and our concentration level had to stay at a high. It really felt like the last three weeks the gap between our performance and our potential was very close and I felt like last night, in those 15 minutes, we were so far from our potential that it really hurt us.”

Binghamton will remain at home to take on Cornell on Tuesday, Oct. 17. Kickoff is set for 6:07 p.m. at the Bearcats Sports Complex in Vestal, New York.