ALBANY, N.Y. – A memorable season for the Binghamton men's lacrosse team came to an end Saturday night as the Bearcats (6-7, 4-3 America East) were defeated by UAlbany (7-7, 6-1 America East) at Bob Ford Field at Tom & Mary Casey Stadium. Despite finishing the regular season tied for third in the America East Conference, Binghamton will miss the conference's tournament due to both the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Merrimack, who are both tied with the Bearcats, owning the tiebreaker over BU.
Matthew Keegan scored four goals, finishing the season with six hat tricks, including one in each of his last three games.
Jack Mellen added two goals, and
Connor Winters made 13 saves in goal.
Needing a win to clinch their first America East regular season championship since 2004, the Bearcats jumped out to an early 3-1 lead in the first quarter. After conceding the first goal of the game, Binghamton responded with tallies from
Liam Ferris, Keegan and
Ross Chazanow. Keegan and Chazanow's goals came nine seconds apart, giving the Bearcats the momentum. While UAlbany put up three more goals in the quarter, Keegan would score his second of the game to make it a 4-4 tie after the first.
Keegan secured his hat trick at 13:48 in the second to put Binghamton ahead 5-4. The Great Danes then scored six of the next eight goals to go into halftime up 10-7.
Jack Mellen, making his third start in a row for the Bearcats, scored both goals during that stretch for BU.
In the second half, UAlbany's defense shut down Binghamton to only three goals. Keegan, Ferris and
Andrew Girolamo would score the final goals of the season for the Bearcats. UAlbany would go on to win the regular season championship, with Graydon Hogg leading the Great Danes with five goals and Ryan Doherty adding four.
Other Notes
- This marks the second season in a row that two Bearcats finished the game with at least 30 goals scored. Keegan ends the year with the team lead at 34, with Ferris having 32. In 2022, Keegan also led the team in goals with 47 tallies, while Gage Adams had 35.
- With Girolamo's goal, he finishes the season leading all Binghamton freshmen in goals with eight in seven games played. Mellen finishes his first season in Vestal with seven goals, despite not scoring one until his ninth collegiate game on March 30 against UMass Lowell.
- After winning 14 out of 31 faceoff attempts, Chazanow finishes his Binghamton career with 358 faceoff victories. That puts him third in Binghamton's list of all-time faceoff wins, one behind Austin Macchi's 359. He also finished Saturday's game with seven ground balls, tied for most in the game.
