Belmont joined the Ohio Valley Conference in 2012, after leaving the Atlantic Sun Conference the year prior.

For the OVC baseball teams, Belmont’s arrival meant that two additional weeks would need to be added to the schedule, which included a bye-week.

The problem for Eastern coach Jim Schmitz was that the Panthers’ season has been moved up one week, as has every other team’s in the conference, but they have had to start at home in less than desirable weather.

After Eastern’s trip to Starkville, Miss., that ended Sunday, the team bus had to stop in Memphis because of atrocious driving conditions that included low visibility and sleet.

“We were driving about 30 mph for four hours,” Schmitz said.

Tuesday’s game at Indiana State was then canceled Monday morning, as the Panthers did not arrive in Charleston until after 5 p.m.

Adding to the cancelation was the move of Eastern’s OVC season-opener from Coaches Stadium to Edwardsville, starting Friday.

The latest snowfall that hit Charleston on Sunday effected the change to the schedule that means the Panthers have lost a home conference series.

“Two years I ago my proposal was to only play nine of the teams because we can’t play this early, but had other voters that have AstroTurf that didn’t think it would be a problem,” Schmitz said. “I pushed the button two summers ago, emailing and calling about this issue, but I was the lone wolf, man.”

So, now the Panthers have to move on and prepare for Southern Illinois-Edwardsville, looking past their inconvenience of having to lose three OVC games.

Schmitz has made some changes during the past few weeks, because of necessity and injury.

First, junior third baseman was ruled out 4-6 weeks with a hand injury after a pitch hit him on his hand on Feb. 21, against Arkansas.

Since the injury, senior Tyler Schweigert has taken over at third base.

“Tyler has played third base out of this world,” Schmitz said. “I’m really proud on how he has played. Defensively, wow.”

The senior, who spent last season playing primarily playing shortstop, has only made one error in 10 games this season.

Schmitz has also moved freshman Frankie Perrone to center field, which has sent former center fielder Caleb Howell over to left field.

Howell’s move over to left field then sent red-shirt sophomore Demetre Taylor off the field and into the designated hitter position.

The chain reaction continued as the Montana Timmons was moved from the designated position to right field, where Perrone played most of his game before the Diamond Classic Friday.

The final move Schmitz made during the weekend was taking freshman Marshawn Taylor out of the starting lineup and putting in Dane Sauer in at shortstop.

Schmitz said he decided to replace Marshawn Taylor because of not being able to do the fundamental things.

“It was the inability to put down a bunt and he’s hitting ninth and he’s been struggling, but we’ve met with him and told him to play defense and do the little things like bunting,” he said. “If players keep failing then as a coach you owe it to your team to put better players in that can get the job done.”

The lineup changes will make its conference debut starting Friday, but no times have been scheduled.

Aldo Soto can be reached at 581-2812 or asoto2@eiu.edu.