Eastern men’s soccer coach Adam Howarth said he is keeping his thoughts positive after a 4-1 loss against conference-leading Omaha Saturday because other league results have kept the Panthers in the thick of the Summit League.

The Panthers are coming up on a handful of games that can get them to, potentially, fourth in the Summit League.

Omaha, who beat the Panthers this weekend, is one of three undefeated teams atop the Summit League, leaving two one-win teams and three winless teams. Eastern is one of the winless teams at 0-3 in league play.

This weekend, Fort Wayne and Missouri-Kansas City tied, while Oral Roberts and Indiana-Purdue-Indianapolis both lost.

“We now have to play teams around us and get results in these matches to put us within striking distance of the top four,” Howarth said.

Eastern will play Western Illinois, Oral Roberts and Fort Wayne, before playing a non-conference game against Belmont on Oct. 30.

The three games coming up could help the Panthers climb the standings or fall out of contention completely.

The Panthers will play Western Illinois and Fort Wayne at home. Both teams are winless in the conference this season and losses to both teams would put Eastern in a bad spot the rest of the season.

In between those games, the Panthers will hit the road to play Oral Roberts – one of two one-win teams. The other one-win team, IUPUI, already beat Eastern earlier this season.

“We have the quality, but are making mistakes that lead to us being down early in matches,” Howarth said.

The Panthers made two mistakes early in Saturday’s match against Omaha, giving up two goals in the first five minutes of play.

“Whenever you give up two goals close to each other, any type of way you want to play has to change,” Howarth said.

The Panthers had to wait until there was two minutes left in the first half to get their first goal, off the foot of sophomore midfielder Will Butler.

In the second half, the Panthers struggled to get opportunities at the goal; in fact, Howarth said the team had better chances in the last 25 minutes of the first half than in the entire second half.

Omaha scored twice in the second half to get the victory, 4-1.

Howarth said the team made costly defensive and goalkeeping mistakes throughout the game in the loss.

“We have to take care of the little things in our play,” Howarth said.

The Panthers have until Friday to prepare for their next game against Western Illinois at 3:30 p.m. at Lakeside Field.

Alex McNamee can be reached at 581-2812 or admcnamee@eiu.edu.