VESTAL, N.Y. - Binghamton baseball (10-15, 6-0 America East) puts its perfect conference record on the line when the first-place Bearcats begin a three-game weekend set at UMass Lowell (11-13, 1-5 AE) at noon Saturday. The teams will play a pair on Saturday and a single game Sunday at LeLacheur Park.

Winners of eight of their last 10 games, the Bearcats are off to their best start to conference play in the program's 15-year tenure in the America East. Thanks to three-game sweeps of Maine and Albany on the last two weekends, Binghamton sits in first place, 1.5 games up on UMBC after one-quarter of the conference slate. In conference play, BU is hitting .282 as a team and its pitching staff boasts a 2.72 ERA. 

Junior first baseman Brendan Skidmore, reigning America East Player of the Week, is hitting .373 over his last 19 games and has driven in 10 runs in his last seven games. Skidmore has nine RBI in six conference games and ranks first in the AE in home runs (6), second in slugging (.615) and RBI (21) and seventh in average (.330).

Sophomore center fielder CJ Krowiak is hitting .462 and has a .517 on-base percentage in league play. He is second in the league in runs scored (22) and third in hits (33). 

On the hill, BU will send junior Jake Cryts (2-3, 5.30 ERA) and senior Mike Bunal (2-3, 6.62 ERA) out on Saturday. Sophomore Jacob Wloczewski (2-0, 1.08 ERA) will pitch Sunday's finale. Cryts is 2-0 with a 2.13 ERA in two conference starts. Bunal, who ranks fifth in the nation in complete games this season, is also 2-0. He has 11 strikeouts in 11 innings pitched against league foes. Wloczewski has been even more stingy than his teammates. He ranks 14th in the country in ERA this spring and America East opponents are hitting just .140 off him.

The host River Hawks have started 1-5 in conference play but three of those defeats have been by the smallest of margins. Lowell dropped a three-game set at UMBC before going 1-2 last weekend against visiting Hartford. The River Hawks are coming off a 7-5 win at Army on Tuesday. 

Freshman first baseman Steve Passatempo shares the conference lead with Skidmore with six home runs and also is tied (with Skidmore) for second with 21 RBI in 24 games. Freshman second baseman Oscar Marchena went 3-for-5 with two RBI at Army. The team's pitching ERA is a solid 3.22.

The all-time series dates back to when both programs were members of the Division II New England Collegiate Conference. Lowell holds a 7-4 lead, though Binghamton has won the last three games, including a twinbill sweep last April in Vestal.