Lantz Arena was not home for the Panthers on Friday.

At times, Lantz had more cheers for the opposing team than for the Panthers.

Samford (14-13) was the first match this past weekend, and it came with a force of players and fans that ended with the Panthers being swept 3-0 (34-32, 31-29, 30-21).

Many times during the match, the Bulldogs fan support was louder than the Panthers fans in the mixed crowd of 347.

Cheers and foot-stomping filled the arena before and after plays, and the Bulldogs performance assured their fans that their trip to Charleston was not a wasted effort.

Samford head coach Michelle Durban said the fan attendance has been static all year, including at away matches.

“We have really good fan support,” Durban said. “One of the girls on the team has family in Wisconsin, so many of them made the trip here. But we’ve had this support all year.”

Durban said she was happier with the team’s plays, especially the middles.

“Our middles have done well all year,” she said. “They made it difficult to score on us today.”

Eastern sophomore libero Lauren Welsh said she didn’t notice the Samford crowd and did not think her teammates did, either.

“We really didn’t notice it,” she said. “We are pretty good at not letting the crowd affect us. We stay really focused during matches.”

The win was critical for the Bulldogs, who need to win the rest of their matches to stay in contention for the Nov. 15 Ohio Valley Conference Tournament. The Bulldogs lost their Saturday match to Southeast Missouri 3-1. Samford is tied for the sixth spot with Tennessee Tech, who both have 9-9 records in the OVC.

“Right now, every match is important,” Durban said. “We are tied with Tech for the sixth spot, but they hold the tiebreaker. We know what we have to do, so now we just let the chips fall where they will.”

Durban said though the Bulldogs won, the Panthers were a tough team to defeat.

“We knew what they were playing for, trying to play the role of spoiler,” she said. “We knew we would have to play a strong game on our side of the net.”

Eastern head coach Lori Bennett said she was disappointed because she knew her team could have won the first two games.

“We talked about if we would have done a four things differently, that would have been a different outcome,” Bennett said.

Welsh agreed with her coach’s assessment of the first two games.

“We did well until the last few points, but we made too many unforced errors,” Welsh said.

The Panthers had 12 serving errors for the two matches this weekend.

Though the defense numbers were down – blocking at 5.5 for the match compared to Samford’s 10 – Bennett said the defense was not the main trouble.

“We stayed in our defensive system and communicated well for 28 out of 30 points,” Bennett said. “But they stayed in their systems for the entire match. That’s the difference between first and eighth place.”

Bennett said her young squad is still learning; in some weeks, she said, it appears to stand still in improvement. She said she wishes the team could have played with more consistency.

Eastern lost its Saturday match to Jacksonville State (16-9, 13-5) 3-1 (35-33, 18-30, 30-26, 30-14).

The Panthers had a bigger turnout than Friday night’s match, with 347 fans for the “Bleed Pink” match. The match was held in conjunction with the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

With the weekend losses, the Panthers are now in the 10th spot in the 11-team OVC standings.

Senior outside hitter Eliza Zwettler had 26 kills and 19 digs for the weekend, and Alex Zwettler had 22 kills and 23 digs. The Zwettler sisters, along with sophomore outside hitter Jessica Wheeler, had double-double performances for the weekend. Wheeler had 19 kills and 24 digs for the match.

Red-shirt sophomore setter Lauren Schutte had 79 assists during the weekend matches.

The Panthers, who missed the tournament for the past two seasons, still have two matches left this season at Murray State on Tuesday and host Austin Peay for Senior Night on Friday for the last match of the season.

Welsh said the team has to continue on.

“We really just want to finish strong,” she said. “Just push as a team to stay focused and get better.”

Eliza Zwettler, senior outside hitter, blocks the ball against Jacksonville state, Saturday night in Lantz Arena. The Panthers lost 1-3. Karla Browning/The Daily Eastern News

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