The Eastern men’s soccer team will play Oral Roberts at 7 p.m. Saturday in Tulsa, Okla., in one of its last two road games this season.

Oral Roberts and Eastern have identical overall records at 2-11, but Oral Roberts is higher in Summit League standings with a 1-3 conference record.

Eastern is winless at 0-4 and will be looking to pick up its first win.

With a win, Eastern would hold a tiebreaker over Oral Roberts, which could be important down the stretch.

“Every match from now on is the most important game,” head coach Adam Howarth said. “We treat each match like a cup final.”

Both teams are giving up more than two goals per game; in fact, Oral Roberts has the second-worst goals against average in the nation, surrendering 2.65 goals per game as of Sunday.

They are 200th out of 201 teams in Division-I men’s soccer. Eastern is 190th in the same rankings.

Eastern is also 158th in the nation in goals scored.

The Panthers have scored 12 goals this season, while giving up 30.

This season Oral Roberts has been lead by Tom Adams, who has four goals and one assist on the year.

Oral Roberts’ Cody Lofgren leads the team with 29 shots and 11 shots on goal.

“Oral Roberts will be organized, very good on restarts and have good individual ability with good technical players,” Howarth said.

Oral Roberts and Eastern are seventh and eighth, respectively, in the Summit League standings.

The Panthers would move up to seventh place with a win Saturday.

With back-to-back games coming up against Oral Roberts and Indiana-Purdue-Fort Wayne, Eastern has an opportunity to make up some ground in the standings.

The Panthers end the season with games against Belmont, a non-conference opponent, and Oakland, 4-0 and leading the Summit League.

Unless Eastern beats Oakland, the final two games will not matter.

Western Illinois, which beat Eastern last weekend, could separate itself from the bottom four teams with a win over Indiana-Purdue-Indianapolis.

If Eastern and Western finish the season with the same number of Summit League wins, Western would hold the tiebreaker.

Howarth said he expects Oral Roberts will be a tough place to play this weekend.

“We must be high energy from the first minute of the game,” Howarth said.

The Panthers game will be at 7 p.m. Saturday in Tulsa, Okla.

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