Evansville came into Charleston the hottest team in the Missouri Valley Conference on a five game winning streak.

That winning streak continued as the Purple Aces knocked off the Panthers 2-0 Wednesday at Lakeside Field.

Evansville (7-2, 1-0 MVC) scored single goals in the first and second half as Eastern (3-2-2, 0-1) could not find the back of the net in the opener of MVC play.

Eastern head coach Adam Howarth said he thought overall it was a pretty even match, although Evansville probably had more time of possession. He said what it came down to was little mistakes.

“As I told the players, this league is all about restarts, mental plays, staying focused and all those types of little things,” Howarth said. “We did not do a good job with the little things and that’s why they scored two goals.”

Evansville opened the scoring in the 31st minute on a free kick. Sophomore defender Blake Schneider served a ball to the far post and the 6-foot-7 sophomore defender got a head on hit to put it into the net.

The Purple Aces second goal came in the 67th minute when Tad Kreamalmeyer knocked it in. The Purple Aces had the ball inside the 18-yard box and Eastern junior goalkeeper Sean Molony came out. The first shot bounced off of Molony and Kreamalmeyer’s second shot went in.

Eastern was able to manage four shots on goal during the match.

The Panthers best chance came in the 53rd minute. Sophomore midfielder Mike Picinich had the ball on the right side of the field and crossed it to junior forward Alex Harrison to the middle of the box.

A defender was between Harrison and the goal, but the sophomore got the shot off. Unfortunately for the Panthers, the ball went wide to the far post.

In the 32nd minute Eastern had another chance. Freshman defender Ryan Warren took a run down the right sideline and served it into freshman forward Kyle Bullock. The ball went up in the air near the goal, but was knocked out by a defender.

Freshman midfielder Jerry Maddi led the team with four shots, one on goal.

“We can take a lot out of this game,” Maddi said. “Evansville is one of the top teams in the conference and we played with them the whole game. They had their chances. We had our chances. We had a lot of corner kicks, we just need to work on finishing on our restarts.”

Evansville coach Mike Jacobs said he knew this would be a tough match because Eastern is well coached and Lakeside Field is a tough place to play.

“I think we did a good job of keeping the ball,” Jacobs said. “Especially in the midfield third. I thought we possessed the ball better than they did.”

Eastern will return to action at 1 p.m. Sunday at Missouri State.

Dan Cusack can be reached at 581-7944 or dscusack@eiu.edu.

Junior forward Alex Harrison takes a shot during the second half of Eastern’s 2-0 loss to Evansville Wednesday at Lakeside Field. The Panthers fell to 0-1 in Missouri Valley Conference play.(Amir Prellberg/The Daily Eastern News)

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