Two second half goals by senior forward Meagan Radloff helped propel the Eastern women’s soccer team to its first Ohio Valley Conference win of the season, beating Austin Peay 3-1 Sunday at Lakeside Field.

The win marks the first time Eastern has beaten Austin Peay since 2009. Since 2010, Eastern has scored just one goal against the Governors. Eastern hasn’t scored more than three goals against Austin Peay since 2003 when it scored four.

The Panthers went down early after Austin Peay’s Gina Fabbro scored just three minutes into the match.

Eastern was able to rebound in the ninth minute with Hannah Miller scoring on an assist from Madison Carter. The Panthers and Governors went into halftime with a 1-1 tie, but Radloff’s second half heroics were enough to give the Panthers the win.

Radloff, who scored the lone goal in Friday’s loss off a set piece, scored in the 47^th minute against the Governors off a set piece led by Allie Lakie.

Then in the 74^th minute, Radloff converted her second penalty kick of the season to bring the score to 3-1. With Eastern already at 0-3 in the OVC, Radloff knew the importance of this match in order to gain ground in the conference standings.

“We were coming into it and we knew that we were kind of coming down to we need to win these games to get into the conference tournament at the end, so we just came out stronger than I think we have before,” Radloff said. “I hope we can just keep up the pressure that we kept on and kind of just keep doing what we doing in this game on to the next one. I think we’re finally figuring things out. A little late, but better late than never.”

Eastern hasn’t had a multiple-goal match since its first win against Chicago State. Since then, its lost its last two matches 3-1 and before that lost 4-0 against Southeast Missouri. Eastern head coach Jason Cherry said its nice to finally be on the other side.

“It was nice to be on the other side of a 3-1 game,” he said. “It was good for our team, mentality-wise.”

This was the first time all season Eastern scored three goals. Eastern only scored more than three goals once all last season, when it scored four against Tennessee Tech.

Junior goalkeeper Emily Hinton got her second career win, making seven saves.

The Panthers hit the road next weekend, taking on Tennessee Tech at 3 p.m. Friday and then Jacksonville State at 1 p.m. Sunday.

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