It has been said before, but I’ll say it again. Defense wins championships. This weekend Eastern’s baseball team made one error in their win over Austin Peay, and six combined in their two losses.

Head coach Jim Schmitz commented that if the Panthers had made a couple of routine plays, Sunday would have been a different game. This was especially true on a pop up in the third inning, when sophomore third baseman Ryan Dineen, typically as sure-handed as the Panthers have on their infield, lost the ball in the swirling winds of Clarksville and missed what would have been the final out.

The next batter unloaded on a three-run home run, and the Panthers ended up losing by one run. With seven errors over the course of the weekend, Dineen’s was not the only defensive issue by far, but it lead to a three-run blast that ended up being the deciding blow in the game.

The Panthers focused on defense all off-season and had looked to defense to be a strength of their team this year, but it has lost them more than one game this year and until it becomes more consistent it will continue to cost them games. The Panthers may be 7-18 overall, but they’re 3-3 in the Ohio valley Conference, and two weekends into an eight weekend conference schedule theta leaves them only one game out of first place in the OVC.

The Panthers weren’t perfect in their first conference weekend against Eastern Kentucky, but they were able to slug their way past Eastern Kentucky at home. The problem that arose this weekend is that when the bats aren’t firing on all cylinders and the defense isn’t flawless the Panthers are going to have a hard time winning games.

The Panthers will have a pair of mid-week games this week to try to work out some of the kinks with their team, as Western Illinois comes to Charleston tomorrow and they travel to Chicago to play a team they beat at home a couple weeks ago. The Panthers beat Chicago State 1-0 last month at Coaches’ Stadium in a game where the wind was blowing in and pitchers on both sides worked quickly to finish the game in just over two hours.

That game saw the Panthers struggle on offense, only mustering five hits against the Cougars. Hopefully the Panthers can clean up their defense and solidify their offense this week against Western and CSU, because if they don’t the bus ride home from Morehead State could be a very unpleasant one for the Panthers.

Brad Kupiec can be reached at 581-7944

or bmkupiec@eiu.edu.