The Panthers’ season came to an end last weekend as their loss to Austin Peay eliminated them from the OVC tournament.

Austin Peay defeated Eastern 10-2 behind clutch hitting and a solid performance by Shawn Kelley, the Governors’ starting pitcher. Eastern managed only two runs and eight hits against Kelley as he went the distance to earn the victory.

The Panthers found themselves trailing 6-0 after just two innings as Eastern starting pitcher Kenny Firlit allowed six earned runs in his 1 2/3 innings of work.

Mike Manns replaced Firlit on the mound and gave up three earned runs in the bottom of the fourth, allowing the Governors to increase their lead to 9-1.

In contrast to the opening round of the tournament, the Panthers’ pitching staff only walked one batter, after allowing 10 free passes in their loss to Southeast Missouri State.

All nine RBI’s for Austin Peay came from the middle of their order and the Governors scored nine of their 10 runs with two outs as they came up with clutch hit after clutch hit.

First baseman Erik Huber was the only Panther with two hits and third baseman Ryan Campbell had the lone RBI.

Eastern Head Coach Jim Schmitz was very disappointed with the fact that the team did not play well, especially after finishing the regular season strong, winning seven of their last nine conference games.

“We came out flat in both games,” Campbell said.

The Panthers’ pitching staff was a little banged up heading into the tournament as their number one and number two starting pitchers were hurt.

“The key was that our starting pitching didn’t pitch well,” Schmitz said.

The season was a step in the right direction as Eastern finished with an overall record of 31-24, adding 14 wins to last year’s total.

Schmitz said the team wanted to get back on the winning track and to get third in conference after where they finished last year is something to be proud of.

“It was a good year overall,” Schmitz said.

Eastern finished the year third in the conference with a 4.73 team ERA (earned run average) and first in fielding percentage (.968).

Offensively, Schmitz hopes to improve the team’s power numbers between now and next season as the team finished third in batting average (.304) but hit a conference low 12 home runs. In comparison, Eastern Kentucky led the conference with 56 homers.

The outlook for next season is promising as Eastern returns the majority of their contributing players.

“We are very excited about next year and will be disappointed if we don’t contend for the conference title,” Schmitz said.

Jacksonville State defeated Samford in the OVC title game 9-8 to earn the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. JSU earned a first-round match up on Friday with number one seed Alabama.