Eastern wraps up the regular season today at Lakeside Field with a 2 p.m. match against in-state rival Illinois State.

The Redbirds (7-6-3, 5-2-1) tangle with the Panthers in their last regular season match as well before hosting Indiana State in a play-in game in the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament Sunday.

“Playing Illinois State is always going to be a little added rivalry,” said Eastern head coach Tim Nowak.

Senior defender Lindsey Holcomb said that despite the game being a non-conference match, it should be a solid match up.

“It’s very competitive between us because we’re in state rivals big time,” she said. “Both teams are getting ready to go into their tournaments respectively so it’ll be a good game.”

The Redbirds defeated the Panthers 3-1 last year and lead the all-time series 5-3. The two teams also played last spring in Champaign at the Illini Cup, with the match resulting in a scoreless tie.

“I think in the past its been a really competitive game,” said sophomore midfielder Kathleen Hayes. “They’ve always beaten us for the most part.”

This is both teams’ regular season finales, with Eastern having a week off before the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament and ISU starting MVC postseason play on Sunday against Indiana State.

Nowak said that after today’s game, the team will have a couple days off before they begin their defense of the OVC title.

“I think the players are going to enjoy it,” said Nowak in reference to the days off. “It gives them time to refuel a little bit and refocus for the conference tournament.”

The Redbirds boast two of the top ten goal scorers in the MVC with freshman forward Melissa Routledge leading the team with 7 and senior defender Heather Forsyth tallying 5.

“From what I remember about Illinois State, they’re a very quick team,” Nowak said. “They have a lot of team speed. They get a lot of numbers around the ball and that’s something that I’m excited to play against because it’s a challenging type of team to play.”

Nowak said that he has not seen the Redbirds in action this year, but he expects them to resemble fellow OVC foe and regular season champion Samford.

“I don’t know as much about (Illinois State) this year, but in the past they’ve been kind of that type of team,” said Nowak, comparing ISU to Samford.

One aspect that the Panthers have struggled with is scoring goals. Given this game is a non-conference match, Nowak said the team wouldn’t necessarily make major adjustments, but try to improve in certain areas, mainly scoring.

“We’re just going to work on some of the issues we need to adjust,” he said. “We need to get our midfielders, mainly our central midfielders, more involved in the flow of the offense.”