BURLINGTON, Vt. - Third-seeded Binghamton men's lacrosse (9-5) held the league's top offense to just three second-half goals but second-seeded Bryant (11-4) fended off the Bearcats 12-11 in an America East semifinal game Thursday night at Vermont's Virtue Field. Earlier, the top-seeded and host Catamounts were upended by fourth-seed Albany 10-4. 

Down 9-6 at half, BU scored three straight goals in the third quarter to tie the game at 9-9. After the Bulldogs reclaimed the lead to end the quarter, BU knotted it again at 10-10 on a Quinn O'Hara goal with 13:17 left in the fourth. But Bryant countered just 50 seconds later and the Bulldogs added a final goal with 9:10 remaining. 

Binghamton made one final push, pulling to within one on a Gage Adams goal with 1:21 left. Senior Matthew DeSouza provided a huge faceoff win (his 12th of the game), giving BU the ball for a potential tying goal. But an O'Hara blast with 48 seconds left rung off the post and another shot with 34 seconds left was saved by the Bryant goalie. A final sharp-angled shot from Adams went wide with 15 seconds left and the Bulldogs ran out the clock. 

"I thought defensively we did a great job in the second half," head coach Kevin McKeown said. "We got a lot of stops ... we gave them some second-chance opportunities that can wear you down, but credit to Bryant ... they played a great game. In that final minute, we felt like we were getting some opportunities so we wanted to go hard and we had a few chances at the end. I'm proud of the way the guys battled. We told them we needed more from them in the second half and they gave us that. I'm especially proud of this senior class ... these guys are leaving our program in a much better place then they found it ... and I'm very proud of who they are as men." 

The game featured five ties but BU played from behind throughout. The Bearcats fell behind 2-0 less than four minutes into the game but rebounded to take their only lead, 4-3, on a goal from Ethan Insinga with 1:16 left in the first quarter. In the second, BU tied it again at 5-5 on a goal from O'Hara with 12:51 left. But Bryant outscored the Bearcats 4-1 the rest of the half to take a 9-6 cushion into intermission.

But the second half belonged to the Bearcats, who used two more goals from Insinga and one from America East Player of the Year Thomas Greenblatt to tie the game at 9-9.

Insinga wound up with a team-high three goals and four points. Greenblatt had a goal and two assists, capping his record-breaking season with an America East-leading 35 assists. The conference's leading scorer, Matthew Keegan, added two goals to finish the season with 47 goals - one off the school record. Adams had a pair of goals.

Freshman goalie Connor Winters made nine saves. 

NOTES
It was the second straight year BU suffered a one-goal semifinal loss at Virtue Field ... the team's nine wins were the most in six seasons (11 in 2017) ... the 11 goals were a postseason record for the Bearcats, breaking the mark of 10 set against UMBC in 2014