VESTAL, N.Y. - With a regular season title in sight, Binghamton baseball (23-21, 15-3 America East) begins a three-game set with Albany (19-23, 7-10 AE) on Saturday in the capital city. The teams will play a twinbill beginning at noon on Saturday and finish up with a single game on Sunday. The first-place Bearcats have a 4.5 game lead over second-place Hartford with six games remaining in the regular season. Two combined wins in the team's final two weekends would clinch BU's fifth regular season crown in the last 10 years.

Binghamton had its season-best eight-game win streak snapped in an 8-7 loss at Siena on Tuesday. But the Bearcats have won five straight conference games and are sitting on their best America East record in 15 years of membership.

Reigning America East Player of the Week Reed Gamache is on fire at the plate and will carry a 16-game hit streak into the weekend. The streak is second-longest in program history, behind only Joe Charron's 21-game hit streak in 2010. In his last 20 games, Gamache is hitting .435 with 24 RBI. He leads the conference in RBI (41) and is third in hits (60). Junior first baseman Brendan Skidmore is hitting .329 with a team-high eight home runs and 34 RBI. Junior left fielder/catcher Eddie Posavec is batting .320 and sophomore center fielder CJ Krowiak is hitting .307 and ranks third in the America East in runs scored (36).

Pitching for the Bearcats this weekend will be junior Jake Cryts (5-4, 4.92 ERA) and senior Mike Bunal (6-3, 4.16 ERA) on Saturday and sophomore Nick Wegmann (1-0, 4.01 ERA) on Sunday.

The Great Danes are in fifth place in the standings but have gone 11-6 over their last 17 games and have won three of their last four conference series'. Last weekend, Albany took two of three from Maine and they have been idle since a 9-4 win over the Black Bears last Sunday. Matt Hinchy leads the team with a .360 average and 31 RBI. Kyle Sacks is hitting .327 with 26 RBI. The Great Danes rank fifth in the conference in hitting (.269), sixth in pitching (5.02 ERA) and seventh in fielding (.962).

Albany will send Ryan Stinar (5-0, 2.61 ERA), Brendan Ryan (5-2, 3.33 ERA) and Stephen Woods (3-5, 6.14 ERA) to the hill. 

Since both programs joined the America East, Binghamton leads the all-time series 36-28. The Bearcats have won 11 of the last 17 meetings, including all three in a series sweep on April 1-2 in Vestal.