Eastern’s next Summit League conference game will be this weekend against Western Illinois. The Panthers have played five games this season in extra time, but the team’s most recent match went scoreless through two overtime periods.

The Eastern men’s soccer team is coming off of a 2-1 victory over Lipscomb and a draw against Indiana University Purdue-University Indianapolis, which improved their record to 4-4-1 overall.

The Panthers’ match against IUPUI was the team’s only Summit League match so far this season. The draw was the Panthers first of the year, but not the team’s first match that went into overtime.

Oral Roberts is currently in first place in the Summit League with a 1-0-0 record. They took down Oakland with a 2-1 victory. The team’s next conference match will be against Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne on Friday at home.

IUPUI is ranked No. 3 and tied with Eastern after settling for a draw.

The next three Summit League teams have yet to start conference play and so are currently at blank slates. That will change with Western Illinois playing Eastern this weekend and IPFW taking on No. 1 ranked Oral Roberts.

The University of Missouri- Kansas City Kangaroos will open their conference schedule against Oakland in a night game at home.

The Oakland Grizzlies round out the Summit League conference rankings as the only team to have a conference loss, falling to Oral Roberts.

Eastern and Western Illinois currently have the two best overall records in the conference, both standing at 4-4-1. IUPUI has the conference’s worst overall record, currently at 1-6-2 overall.

Eastern is the conference leader in shots taken with 128, averaging 14.22 per game.

Western is currently second with 125, averaging 13.89 per game.

IPFW leads the conference in points, with 10. Eastern, Western Illinois and Oakland are all tied for second with 9 points each.

No team in the conference has scored more goals so far this season than IPFW, who lead the conference with 17. IPFW also leads the conference in average goals per game with 1.50 and also in assists with 14.

Western Illinois is the conference leader in fewest goals allowed with 9, while IPFW is at the bottom with IPFW with 24.

IPFW leads the conference in saves with 65 saves in 10 games, while Western Illinois has the most shutouts in the conference with three in nine games.

The Summit League tournament will begin on November 11 in Kansas City, Mo.

Dominic Renzetti can be reached at 581-7944

or at dcrenzetti@eiu.edu.