The Eastern women’s soccer team will play its last full weekend of the regular season as it takes to the road to play against Murray State today and Austin Peay Sunday.

The Panthers are coming off a weekend in which they lost to Eastern Kentucky 1-0 on Oct. 14 before beating Morehead State 2-0 on Oct. 16 with both of those matches taking place at Lakeside Field.

“Every conference win is going to be key for us,” head coach Summer Perala said. “Being 4-2 in conference puts us right in contention for the top seed.”

Eastern is currently in second in the Ohio Valley Conference with an conference record of 4-2-0, behind only Southeast Missouri, who stands at 6-1-0 in conference.

This leaves the Panthers with a shot at winning the regular season OVC crown, but for that to happen the Panthers would need to win all three of their upcoming OVC games and the Redhawks would have to lose both of their final OVC contests.

This weekend the Panthers will look to improve on a 1-5-2 away record on the season, but they are only 1-1-0 when away from Charleston within their OVC schedule.

The last time the Panthers were on the road in the OVC, they lost to Southeast Missouri in Cape Girardeau, Mo., before beating Tennessee-Martin.

As they look into this weekend on the road, the Panthers will be facing a pair of teams who are at the bottom of the proverbial barrel in the OVC standings, with Murray State sitting at 1-2-2 in conference play while Austin Peay sits at dead last in the OVC with a conference record of 1-3-1.

Red-shirt sophomore goalkeeper Jessica Taldone goes into this weekend with a 4-7-2 overall record between the pipes this season, but she is 3-2-0 against the OVC, as she also boasts significantly better save percentage and goals-against-average numbers against OVC opponents than non-conference foes.

The Panthers’ four OVC wins this year have all been clinched on game-winning goals from different players. Freshman midfielder/forward Brooke Sill, sophomore defender Brenna Vogel, junior midfielder/forward Jessie Morgan and senior midfielder/forward Jessica Blake have all netted game-winning tallies for the Panther in OVC play.

Two other Panthers have netted one OVC goal apiece. Junior forward Kristin Germann and senior midfielder/forward Ashley Eck have both scored non-game-winners for Eastern during this year’s OVC schedule.

Brad Kupeic can be reached at 581-2812 or bmkupiec@eiu.edu