This past Saturday, the Colgate men’s lacrosse team faced a hard fight in their midday game at Binghamton University. In their second and final pre-conference game, the team hit the road for the first time this season and faced a loss to the Binghamton Bearcats. The final score was 8-11, making Colgate’s total record against Binghamton now 11-3.

“Everyone’s working hard and the effort is there. We’re definitely a little disappointed, but we’ll just have to come out on Monday, keep working hard and prepare for the upcoming weekend,” said sophomore Will Blumenberg, who had two goals against Binghamton.

 In the first quarter, the Bearcats caught an early lead in the contest, scoring two goals before the Raiders got on the board, but first-year midfielder Griffin Brown responded with his first goal of the season to make the score 2-1. After another Bearcats’ goal, junior attack Chase Wittich scored unassisted to bring the score up to 3-2, still in favor of the Bearcats.

Colgate did not score in the second period, leaving two Binghamton goals without response. At the end of the first half, the Bearcats led the Raiders 5-2.

 In the third quarter, the Raiders

managed to outscore the Bearcats. Binghamton came out and put one more on the board to make it 6-2, but junior attack Anthony Abbadessa soon responded to make it 6-3. The Bearcats scored two more goals, but within the last two and a half minutes of the quarter, Colgate put three goals on the board to tighten the gap in the score 8-6. Sophomore midfielder Will Blumenberg had his second goal of the season, followed by Abbadessa and Brown. 

Two penalties also took place in the third quarter. Sophomore defense Danny Healy and first-year long stick midfielder Parker Baddley both had thirty second penalties called against them at different points in the quarter, giving the Bearcats opportunities to take advantage of Colgate’s diminished numbers. 

The fourth quarter started with Binghamton putting two goals up on the board. Blumenberg and first-year attack Nicky Petkevich were each able to get one more goal on the board before the Bearcats scored again, and the game concluded with a final score of 8-11.

 Abbadessa, Wittich, Healy, senior midfield Peter Donato and senior attack Robby Dunigan all had assists. The Raiders also won the majority of the faceoffs, coming away from 23 draws with 16 possessions. Junior faceoff Collin Orr had a career-high 14 faceoff wins, and the other two were won by first-year faceoff-midfield Malcom Feeney. Despite the loss, senior goalie Brandon Burke had a career high of 18 saves. Coming out of this weekend, Abbadessa leads the team with five goals and six points.

“It was a tough game for us.  Not easy to win when you turn the ball over 18 times.  The credit goes to Binghamton; they played hard and deserved to win. We need to get back to practice on Monday and get focused on winning our first Patriot League game,” head coach Mike Murphy said. Murphy has been head coach at Colgate for five seasons now, with a record of 45-34 overall and 24-19 in Patriot League competition.

The team will travel to Bucknell University in Lewisberg, Pennsylvania on February 25 for their first on-the-road conference game of the season, with hopes of capturing their first win.