Less than 48 hours after playing to a 0-0 draw against Indiana-Purdue University at Indianapolis in its season opener, the Eastern women’s soccer team fell 6-0 to Northern Kentucky in its home opener at Lakeside Field Sunday.

Freshman goalie Maddie Lyon saved all nine shots Friday against IUPUI. Sunday, Lyon faced 19 shots and saved 13 of them.

Eastern coach Jason Cherry praised his freshman goalkeeper after her two performances over the weekend.

“I think she did a great job as a freshman,” Cherry said. “She had one goal that she could have done better with, but she’s a freshman. She is going to make mistakes. I think we could have defended better and a lot of opportunities (NKU) had shouldn’t have been opportunities.”

Senior midfielder Molly Hawkins also had praise for the freshman goalie.

“She’s been really solid in goal for us to start off the season,” Hawkins said. “Today was a tough game as a whole, but she kept her spirits up and kept a good attitude throughout it all.”

Northern Kentucky scored six goals and had 19 shots on target.

Sophomore Jessica Frey received a through ball from red-shirt senior Kelsey Laumann and put it past Lyon in the lower left corner of the goal at the 12:59 mark of the first half to give the Norse a 1-0 lead.

Throughout the first 20 minutes or so, Cherry thought his team had the better part of the possession.

“I think we fought with them,” he said. “I think the energy was really good, and we had our legs for the most part.”

The Norse would add another two goals before the half ended. Sophomore Macy Hamblin scored 28:14 into the 1st half after receiving a pass in the box from red-shirt senior Kelsey Zwergel.

Hamblin would juke around Lyon in the box and put the ball into the net.

Norse freshman Samantha Duwel deflected the ball in from a corner at the 44:33 mark of the first half.

The Norse would add three more goals in the final 45 minutes of action.

The Panthers were held to just two shots on goal and three shots overall and had trouble generating any offense during Sunday’s game.

Hawkins said her team’s strategy at the beginning of the game was to send balls to the corners or play the forwards into the corners since Northern Kentucky would send their outside backs up.

“We just couldn’t get the ball off of our feet quick enough,” she said. “We’ll continue to work on both attacking and defending, and it will come together. It’s still early in the season.”

Despite losing 6-0, Hawkins said it was really important to keep the effort and intensity up in the game.

“We’ll take this as a learning lesson,” she said. “We’ll just have to work harder this week in practice so we can be ready for the pair of away games this coming weekend.”

The Panthers will travel to Macomb to take on Western Illinois Friday and then head to Cedar Falls, Iowa, to take on Northern Iowa Sunday.

Bob Reynolds can be reached at 581-2812 or rjreynolds@eiu.edu.