President's Report Masthead
September 30, 2014

Feature stories

AD Elliott previews 2014-15 year (radio interview)

With the 2014-15 athletic year starting up at Binghamton, Director of Athletics Patrick Elliott was a guest on Roger Neel’s WNBF Morning Show this past Friday. He touched on a variety of topics from the excitement of the year starting to the new staff hires as well as the continued academic excellence of BU’s student-athletes.

The Bearcat women’s soccer team kicked off their season at home against Temple on Friday. The men’s soccer team launches its 2014 campaign on Friday at Bucknell while the volleyball team heads out to California this weekend for its season-opening tournament at Loyola-Marymount.

Hear interview

Women’s basketball participates in Chillin’ for Charity fundraiser (video)

See video here

Women’s soccer celebrates 10-year anniversary of historic season

Ten years ago the women’s soccer team did something nobody expected them to do. After failing to qualify for the America East tournament in each of the two previous seasons and being relegated to 8th (out of 10) in the Coaches’ Preseason Poll, the Bearcats produced a magical season in 2004. Still a very young Division I program under the direction of seventh-year coach Jeff Leightman ’95, BU turned the tables on its conference foes and produced numerous achievements:

    - Program’s first America East regular season and tournament titles
    - Program’s first NCAA Division I tournament appearance
    - 14-6-1 record (6-3 in conference play)
    - Five all-conference selections and Coach of the Year
    - Ranked as high as No. 4 in the Northeast

The seeds for the title run were sown in the previous two years, when talented Bearcats teams won a combined 18 games but were stifled by America East foes. The 2002 team strung together a seven-game unbeaten streak and the 2003 team won five of its first seven games before ultimately missing a postseason berth by one goal. Binghamton’s inability to turn tight games into conference wins prompted the league’s coaches to put BU eighth in the 2004 poll, one spot lower than the team’s 2003 finish.

The Bearcats surged through a 6-1-1 record in their non-conference slate, but they had done that before. The real test awaited in October.

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