Eastern junior defender Jake Plant pulled the Eastern men’s soccer team out of a hole Saturday scoring the final two goals of a 3-2 come-from-behind win.

Plant and the Panthers hadn’t won a game since mid-September going into Saturday’s game against Indiana-Purdue-Fort Wayne.

But on the Panthers’ senior day, Plant scored his first goal at the 66-minute mark and then again with one second left in overtime to lead the Panthers to the win.

Fort Wayne’s Austin West scored the first goal of the game so quickly that it looked like the day might not favor Eastern. West scored 57 seconds into the game off of a free kick outside of the goal box on a ball that deflected off a wall of Eastern defenders and past senior goalkeeper Evan Turner into the goal.

Thirteen minutes later, Eastern sophomore forward Tayron Martin scored an unassisted goal to knot the game, 1-1.

Martin’s goal was his third of the season, separating him from a large field of two-goal scorers on the Panthers’ squad as the team’s leading goal scorer.

The teams held pat at 1-1 going into halftime, but three goals would come in the second half and overtime, combined.

Fort Wayne’s Kyle Ackerman scored the first of the second half, scoring on a ball from three yards out after penetrating through the defense.

Giving up two goals hasn’t worked out well this year for the Panthers, so things didn’t look promising for the Panthers after Ackerman’s goal.

The Panthers have lost every game this season when giving up at least two goals. Worse, the Panthers also hadn’t scored two goals since their last win on Sept. 18.

But Plant would come out of his shell late in the game, scoring his first and second goals of the season for the Panthers.

At the 66-minute mark, Plant nailed a header from Martin’s free kick passed Fort Wayne goalkeeper Brandon Cloutier.

His 66-minute goal would tie the game going into overtime. But with one second left in overtime, Plant scored again off an assist from Jake Irwin to win the game.

Eastern is now one win behind the four teams in front of them in the standings, but most of those teams, except Fort Wayne, have tiebreakers over them.

The Panthers’ final home game is against Belmont at 3 p.m. Tuesday at Lakeside Field.

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