After winning its first America East (AE) conference match last week against UNH, the Binghamton women’s soccer team defeated UMBC 3-1 at home on Sunday afternoon. After BU built a two-goal lead in the first half, an own goal from the Bearcats made it a one-score game. However, late in the second half, Binghamton secured the victory with another goal to earn a 3-1 win over UMBC to stay undefeated in AE play.

“You want to make sure that you play a complete 90-minute performance,” said Binghamton head coach Neel Bhattacharjee. “Otherwise the game can flip. So that’s something we’ll need to address and talk about. But you know, other than that, I was pleased overall in terms of performance … anytime you get three points, especially at home, it’s critical.”

Binghamton (3-4-3, 2-0-0 AE) went on the attack first, quickly entering the Retrievers’ (3-8-1, 0-1-1 AE) defensive zone. This momentum carried freshman forward Paige Luke to the first shot of the game from the left corner of the box, but it ended up in the UMBC goalkeeper’s gloves. From there, the contest would go back and forth with frequent periods of attacking on both ends of the field. While UMBC managed to create several scoring opportunities, the Binghamton defense was able to break up every Retriever opportunity to score. BU held UMBC to just 3 shots in the first half.

“UMBC was able to create some situations where we had to defend, and we were able to recover in transition for the most part,” Bhattacharjee said. “Where we did a better job was once we broke that initial line of pressure, we were able to play behind them a little bit more and that’s where the game opened up for us more and then we were able to get some attack going.”

On the offensive side of the action, the Bearcats got 11 shots off but were unable to capitalize for much of the half. However, their luck would change late in the first half, in the 42nd minute of play, when sophomore defender Brooke Herber found the back of the net off a rebound shot, courtesy of graduate student midfielder Olivia McKnight. Just under two minutes later, McKnight collected another assist when sophomore forward Lauren Clark tapped in another deflected shot. The Bearcats found themselves with a 2-0 advantage going into halftime.

Possession continued to swing both ways as the second half began. BU continued to attack the Retriever’s box, with a shot from sophomore forward Samiya Reid just bouncing off the crossbar in the 64th minute. However, UMBC would end up on the board first in the half when a mistimed touch from the Bearcats ended up in their own goal, making the score 2-1.

“I thought we could have handled it a little bit better if we just had dropped a little bit more and if we just denied the early service in the first place we don’t get caught in those situations,” Bhattacharjee said. “So credit to them, they had a couple [of] moments where they were able to be somewhat effective on … the goal, but those are things defensively I think we can do a better job on.”

A few minutes later, UMBC looked for the equalizer, getting off two shots that were saved by junior goalkeeper Kaitlyn Williams. With the game now a one-score contest, BU began to launch a more aggressive attack. In the 81st minute, this paid off when senior midfielder Victoria McKnight broke off a defender to get the ball to Luke, who found the back of the net to make it a 3-1 game. BU maintained its lead for the rest of the match, securing a 3-1 win over UMBC.

“Our movement was sharp,” Bhattacharjee said. “I thought our way that we connected to our feet was sharp and then the ability to play some of those final passes in behind UMBC, that’s where we got pretty dangerous. And, you know, great ball for [Luke] to run on to and ultimately to have that finish.”

BU will continue AE play when they host Albany on Thursday, Sept. 28. Kickoff is set for 6:07 p.m. at the Bearcats Sports Complex in Vestal, New York.