After matching its highest win total in the program’s Division I history last season, the Binghamton University women’s basketball team opened its 2011-12 campaign on Friday looking to build on its recent success. The Bearcats got off to a good start, defeating Mount St. Mary’s University 52-43 at the Events Center.

Led by senior Viive Rebane, the Bearcats (1-0, 0-0 America East) forced 23 turnovers on 12 steals and held the Mountaineers (0-1, 0-0 Northeast) to only 43 points.

Rebane, the 6-foot-1-inch forward from Estonia, collected a career-high seven steals to go alongside her seventh career double-double with 14 points and 12 rebounds. Her aggressive play on both offense and defense remained a constant throughout the game.

“I had a lot of energy playing in the first home game,” she said. “[The steals] just happened. They didn’t take care of the ball.”

The Binghamton defense played a big role in the early stages of the game. Last season, Binghamton’s scoring defense topped the America East conference and ranked 19th in the country, holding opponents to 54.5 points per game.

While the Bearcats scored just eight points through the first five minutes and 40 seconds, their defense held the Mountaineers to just four points well beyond the game’s first nine minutes.

A large portion of Binghamton’s offense extended from its defense. BU scored 21 points off turnovers.

The Bearcats also looked to senior guard Orla O’Reilly for offense throughout the game. She finished with 13 points, nine off 3-pointers. She led Binghamton in 3-point field goal percentage (just over 32 percent) last season.

Despite being held scoreless for the final three minutes of the first half, BU took a 27-16 lead to the locker room.

O’Reilly attributed some of the cold shooting periods to the Mountaineers’ switch in defensive strategy from man to zone, along with the Bearcats’ failure to convert on some easy looks.

“I think it was more on our part,” she said. “They slowed down our offense. We had a little flow going on with our man offense, but I think we need to work on the zone a little bit more. We weren’t hitting easy shots like we usually are.”

Mount St. Mary’s began the second half with four consecutive 3-point field goal attempts and made two of them. This brought the teams to within five points of each other only two minutes into the half.

After a Binghamton timeout, the Bearcats proceeded to go on a 9-0 run in the next three minutes. The run was led by the hustle of junior forward Kara Elofson, who fought under the basket to find herself at the free-throw line on two consecutive possessions, converting on all four of her free-throw attempts.

Elofson finished with six points and five rebounds, four of which came on offense.

Despite having multiple opportunities to put the Mountaineers away for good, Binghamton was unable to do so. BU head coach Nicole Scholl pointed at the need for minor improvements in places like the Bearcats’ lack of execution and missed free-throw attempts.

“We could have put the game away a lot faster if we’d made a few [free throws],” Scholl said. “[It] makes life interesting when you’re not hitting those. I think [we need to work on] our overall execution. At the beginning, I thought we were getting some good looks. Things weren’t falling, but I thought the looks that we were getting were the right ones. [We need to work on] just a few little detailed things both offensively and defensively.”

Binghamton shot just 42.9 percent from the free-throw line, leaving eight points on the court from the charity stripe. The Bearcats also shot only 25 percent from behind arc.

Still, Scholl was encouraged by the team’s ability to create the right opportunities.

“It is encouraging [to get the shot opportunities],” she said. “But the discouraging piece is that our practices have to get up to a level of where our game competition is going to be.”

The Bearcats are set to continue play when they face Siena College at 7 p.m. tonight on the UHY Court at the Alumni Recreation Center in Loudonville, N.Y.