The Eastern women’s soccer team will try to get into the win column at 4 p.m. today in Muncie, Ind., when they square off against Ball State in the first of four straight road matches.

The Panthers (0-5-1) dropped a pair of home contests last weekend.

The team fell 1-0 to Wright State last Friday, before dropping a 4-0 contest to Eastern Michigan on Sunday.

After the loss to Wright State senior forward Pam Melinauskas said the Panthers are going to have to do a better job of capitalizing on scoring opportunities if they want to get in the win column.

“We did a good job of getting them off balanced,” Melinauskas said. “But the key is that we have to finish.”

Ball State (1-3) is the two time defending Mid-American Conference Champion.

The only previous meeting between the schools came last season when the Panthers pulled off a 1-0 victory at Lakeside Field.

Despite the victory, the Cardinals outshot the Panthers 22-5 in the match.

Even with Ball State’s struggles to start the season, Panther head coach Tim Nowak knows the success the Ball State program has had and expects the match to be just as competitive as it was a year ago.

“We played a great game against them last year,” Nowak said. “It was a wonderful game on both sides of the ball and both teams worked really hard. I expect the same kind of thing. We just need to play complete soccer. We need to do all of the little things like taking care of the ball when we’re supposed to and challenging all the 50-50 balls.”

Collin Whitchurch can be reached at 581-7944 or at cfwhitchurch@eiu.edu.

Freshmen defender Erika Prazma dribbles the ball against Eastern Michigan on Sunday at Lakeside Field. (Amir Prellberg/The Daily Eastern News)

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