In sports, athletes always talk about learning from mistakes, whether it be doing something different or changing a reaction in a certain situation.

This past weekend, the Eastern men’s soccer team did just that, learned from its mistakes.

After allowing two goals on restarts against Evansville Wednesday, Eastern head coach Adam Howarth said the Panthers would work on the little things in practice for the match against Missouri State Sunday.

He said they would work on little mental errors that plagued the Panthers in the loss at home.

Eliminating mental mistakes is not as easy as correcting formation or even a certain technical mistake a player is making.

So the question is, how does an athlete cut out the mental brain fart that can come at any moment of any match?

Howarth said they would use real match situations as well as have immediate punishment like push-ups if a player screwed up.

The strategy appears to have worked.

Eastern traveled to Springfield, Mo., this weekend and knocked off a good Missouri State team. This Bears team had already knocked off consistent MVC powerhouse Creighton on the road and a solid Southern Methodist team.

The Panthers scored three goals, the second most this season, and turned the tides on restarts as they scored two goals off free kicks.

The defense, which pitched its fourth shutout of the season, has been solid all season. Even in the match against Evansville, the defense played solid. The Panthers just fell asleep on two restarts.

Junior forward Alex Harrison said he would like to see the Panthers start matches better. He felt Eastern had started matches slow in most of its contests this season.

Then, Eastern put it all together on Sunday.

Harrison said the team played inspired throughout the match.

On defense it pressured and on offense it attacked and held the ball. He said most importantly, though, is that the team did it for all 90 minutes.

The Panthers have been up and down so far this season with a 4-3-3 record, but this win puts them at .500 in the MVC schedule.

The league has a lot of parody, and add to the fact that every team this year will play each other twice.

It is still early in the MVC, but if the Panthers can continue to play like they did Sunday, they will be tough to stop.

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