Spirits are high for the men’s soccer team.

Why shouldn’t they be?

The Panthers (4-3-2) are coming off their first victory in Missouri Valley Conference play since a 3-1 win against Western Kentucky Oct. 27, 2007, after they defeated Missouri State 3-0 Sunday.

Eastern will look to go to 2-1 in conference play when it takes on Evansville (7-3, 1-1) at 7 p.m. today in Evansville, Ind.

For the Panthers, everything will be familiar about this match up. Last Wednesday, the Panthers fell to the Purple Aces 2-0 at Lakeside Field and for the fourth time in two seasons, including three times this year, Eastern will play in Evansville.

“It helps a lot playing there because it is one of the best fields in the conference,” junior midfielder Darby Kehoe said. “It has a great surface and because we have played there so often we are comfortable playing there.”

Eastern played in the ProRehab Aces Soccer Classic earlier this season and went 1-0-1 with a win against Mercer and a tie against Indiana-Purdue-Indianapolis.

“It is great we get to play there again,” Eastern head coach Adam Howarth said. “We are very familiar and we can drive over that day. Plus, it is a night game, and there will be a big crowd which will be nice for our guys.”

Howarth said restarts will again be a key for the Panthers. Last week, Evansville scored twice off restart goals.

“There is advantage to playing them again because we know the mistakes we made,” Howarth said. “However, I’m sure they think they made a couple of mistakes, and there are things they know they can tighten up.”

Howarth said it was great to sneak a win on the road after surrendering a loss in the home conference opener. He said there are some tough road matches coming up, but if Eastern could sneak a few wins on the road, as well as protect its home field, the team would be fine.

Kehoe said playing the team so soon is to their advantage because they now know what they need to do in order to win the match.

“Going in we know what they are going to do and have game experience against it,” Kehoe said. “It will help with defense and how we defend there set pieces.”

He said the importance of the win against Missouri State is huge.

“It was great getting that first MVC win in two years,” Kehoe said. “We have a good confidence going right now and we have the belief that we can win this time.”

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