Coming off a 26-31 season that saw the Eastern baseball team advance to the semifinal round of the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament, the Panthers were picked by the OVC head baseball coaches to finish fifth in the upcoming season.

Jacksonville State, new to the the OVC this year, received five first-place votes and 73 points to edge Southeast Missouri (three first-place vote, 71 points) for the top spot in the conference. Austin Peay State University (27-26-1 and the top seed in last year’s OVC tournament) was picked third with 69 points and one first-place vote. Eastern Kentucky rounded out the top four with 51 points.

Despite surprising the number one and three seeds in the OVC tournament last May, Panthers head coach Jim Schmitz said the ranking seems par for the Panthers.

“Yeah, I think it’s justified with the number of seniors and drafted players we lost from last year,” Schmitz said. “We’re missing about eight or nine guys and they supplied a lot of offense and pitching for our team.”

A few of those productive seniors from last season include catcher/designated hitter Bret Pignatiello (.313, 17 home runs, 59 runs batted in), outfielders Danny Jordan (.298, 4, 26) and Kirk Walters (.392, 13, 56). The pitching staff also took a hit from graduation with starters Damon White (4-4, 4.62 earned run average in 85.2 innings) and Matt Tyson (3-6, 6.22, in 81 innings) departing. The Panthers top two closers, Nathan Stone (five saves) and Aaron Shelbourne (two saves), also graduated last year.

While the Panthers were hit hard by departing players, Schmitz commented not every team ranked first in the preseason goes out and wins the OVC. He also said with so many changes league-wide the rankings by no means dictate how the year may turn out.

“In this league there are so many junior college and transfer players that I really don’t give the rankings much merit,” Schmitz said.

Besides the many incoming players, the league will also welcome a pair of new teams as Jacksonville State and Samford enter the OVC. With the added teams, Schmitz believes the league will be wide-open which wasn’t always the case in previous years.

“You hear things like Murray State picked up three Division I-A transfers but really there is a lot of parity in this league,” Schmitz said. “This is no slap to anybody but there are a lot of changes in the conference with EKU (Eastern Kentucky) and Tennessee Tech bringing in new coaches. I told my wife that there used to be two top teams and now there is about six teams who really could contend.”

If the Panthers are one of those teams only time will tell. Schmitz said Eastern is “pretty young” but the Panthers will start the season with some talented freshman included third baseman Ryan Campbell.

The Orland Park native will take over the “hot corner” and last year’s starting third baseman Jeff Cammann will move to rightfield in moves that will improve the Eastern defense and offense.

“Last season we had a problem defensively so we came to Jeff and told him he had to play third because he’s so talented in the field,” Schmitz said. “A club really needs one or two players like Jeff who are team players.”

As for Campbell, expect some big offensive numbers according to Schmitz.

“Ryan can hit the ball with power.”

With the addition of two new squads, the conference schedule will increase from 21 to 27 games against conference foes. This will allow teams that start off slow to get back into the OVC race by the end of the year.

“With 27 (conference) games nobody is going to go away,” Schmitz said. “It’s a pretty lengthy season and that will show that a number of teams can compete.”

The Panthers are suffering through a few nagging injuries on their pitching staff, which may alter the season opening rotation, but after last year’s 13-inning loss to Murray State to end the season Schmitz said his team is ready.

“We have a lot of new people and we’re more excited now then in the summer or fall,” Schmitz said. “One nice thing about this time of year is that everyone thinks they can go to the World Series in February or March.”

The Panthers will start their season on Feb. 27 in Monroe, La. against 2003 College World Series participant Southwest Missouri State.