VESTAL, N.Y. - Freshman midfielder Emily Nelson recorded a hat trick to lead UMass Lowell women's soccer (4-6-4, 2-1-1 America East) to a 3-1 win over Binghamton women's soccer (7-6-2, 2-3 AE) Sunday afternoon at the Bearcats Sports Complex. 

The Bearcats entered the game with a 6-0 record at home and had outscored opponents 10-0 on their home turf. But the River Hawks scored twice in a seven-minute stretch midway through the first half and wound up scoring all three goals in a 16-minute span. 

Senior forward Kayla Saager gave BU an early lead in the eighth minute, taking advantage of a botched back pass on Lowell's back line. Saager pressured a lateral ball sent toward the UML keeper deep in the box and when it was misplayed, Saager stepped in and tapped in her team-high 10th goal of the season. 

But Nelson and her teammates took over from there. Nelson scored her first in the 19th minute on a 22-yard shot following a corner kick. Seven minutes later, she headed in a cross from the right to give UML a 2-1 lead. Then in the 35th minute, Nelson shot through the middle on a breakaway and after freshman keeper Haylee Poltorak stopped the initial stop, Nelson tapped in the rebound to finish the scoring.

The teams played a scoreless final 45 minutes. 

"In the first half we were outplayed and outcoached in every regard," head coach Neel Bhattacharjee said. "We can't expect to come out and give as poor a performance as we did and in that opening 45 minutes. You have to do all the little things and big things to get a win in this conference ... we didn't have any of that in the first half and deserved to be down. I like that we had a good response in the second half ... probably good enough to get a goal or two but it just didn't work out that way. We didn't play a full 90 minutes and unfortunately we got what we deserved because of it."

The Bearcats finished with a 14-10 shots advantage.

Binghamton, which dropped from third place to seventh after the slate of conference games, is now off until playing at first-place Hartford next Sunday afternoon.  


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