The Western Illinois men’s soccer team, which barely made the four-team Summit League tournament, won the whole thing in Macomb this weekend.

Western was hosting the tournament as the reigning champions and beat Kansas City and Oakland, the top two seeds, to earn an automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament.

Western beat Kansas City, 1-0, on Friday in overtime on a goal four minutes into the period.

Then Western beat Oakland on Sunday, 3-1, with two second half goals after going into halftime 1-1. Oakland beat Fort Wayne, 5-1, on Friday to advance to the title game.

Western’s Tyler Chavez and Nathan Bruinsma scored goals one minute apart in the second half to lead to the victory.

Oakland outshot Western 26-16 and took eight more corner kicks.

The last team to win consecutive tournament championships was Western in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Prior to that, no team ever won consecutive titles.

However, Oakland was one of only two teams to win consecutive regular season championships. Oakland won three in a row from 2007 to 2009. Former Summit League member Valparasio won back-to-back championships in 1997 and 1998.

Eastern ended the season at the bottom of the barrel in the Summit League, but senior goalkeeper Evan Turner ended his career on a high note by being named Summit League Defensive Player of the Week last week.

In the last week of the season, Turner was in net for a Panther loss and a tie. The tie game was the Panthers only one of the season. Turner only gave up 0.88 goals per game in that stretch.

Turner and freshman goalkeeper Garrett Creasor ended the season giving up an equal number of goals, surrendering 18. However, Turner had the lower goals against average, playing in more games than Creasor.

Turner is one of few seniors graduating this season. Defender Ian McCausland graduates this year. He played in 15 games, anchoring the defense, but only had one shot on goal.

Midfielder Jordan Collins played in 12 games and scored two goals this season.

Offensively, sophomore forward Tayron Martin led the Panthers with three goals this season.

Collins, junior midfielder Jake Plant, red-shirt freshman Garet Christianson and red-shirt sophomore defender Chris Boswell each scored two goals this season.

Sophomore Jake Irwin also led the team with five assists on the year.

Plant scored both of his goals once the team reached Summit League play.

Next season, Plant will be the only senior on the team.

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