Sole possession of first place in the Ohio Valley Conference will be decided 7 p.m. Friday in Martin, Tenn., when the Eastern women’s soccer team travels to take on Tennessee-Martin.

The Panthers will also take on Southeast Missouri at 1 p.m. on Sunday on the road.

The Panthers and Skyhawks are tied for first place in the conference with 18 points each and identical 6-1 records.

With only two weeks left in the season, Eastern and Tennessee-Martin are fighting for a No. 1 seed and home field advantage in the OVC tournament.

Since losing its first OVC match of the season against Austin Peay on Sept. 27, the Skyhawks have been on a roll, winning six straight.

Tennessee-Martin has given just four goals since the start of the conference season, most recently shutting out Belmont 2-0 last Sunday.

Eastern won its last two matches over Murray State and Jacksonville State, both with scores of 2-1. The Panthers’ Meagan Radloff enters with six goals this season, scoring in five of the team’s seven OVC matches.

Despite the team’s 2012 leading scorer and OVC Freshman of the Year, Saphyra Coombs-James, having missed the entire season with an ACL injury, the Skyhawks have senior forward Abi Sanvee, who leads the team this season with four goals.

Eastern has injuries of its own, with senior defender Caitlin Greene out for the season and red-shirt freshman goalkeeper Kylie Morgan still battling a hand injury.

Sophomore defender Lindsey Marino has yet to play this season, while freshmen Gabby Charles and Paige DeThorne have also missed time because of injury.

Stepping in for Morgan has been sophomore Cortney Jerzy, who has started in all of the team’s OVC matches this season.

“This weekend will be two tough matches, basically the battle for first place to see who’s going to take it,” Jerzy said. “It’s kind of unfortunate the way Kylie’s season has been going with her injuries.”

Jerzy started the year playing in the field, but has since been moved back to goalkeeper.

“I had to go from playing the field to jumping back in net afterwards, which isn’t a big deal, because the net is like my home position,” she said. “It’s been good ever since, conference has been going well and it’s just good to know that the team has my back.”

Southeast Missouri enters the weekend with 14 points in fourth place in the OVC. The Redhawks, who had two players take home OVC player of the week awards this past week, are in good shape to make the tournament in November.

Freshman Christiana Rohde was named OVC Defensive Player of the Week, playing the full length of both the Redhawks’ wins over the weekend. She also had an assist on the team’s game winning goal against Belmont.

Senior goalkeeper Ashton Aubuchon was named OVC Goalkeeper of the Week, recording her 20th career shutout against Tennessee Tech over the weekend.

Natasha Minor and Erin Shulman, who each have four goals this season, lead the Redhawks on offense.

Jerzy said she’s hopeful that the team can get two road wins this weekend.

“Everything’s flowing smoothly so far,” she said. “Hopefully this weekend we’ll turn out two wins on the road and hopefully win the OVC if we can.”

 Dominic Renzetti can be reached at 581-2812 or dcrenzetti@eiu.edu