Freshman goalkeeper Maddie Lyon did not let up any goals for Panthers, but neither did Caroline Robinson of Jacksonville State resulting in a 0-0 draw.

With the tie, Eastern is now 2-9-2 on the season and 0-1-1 within Ohio Valley Conference play.

Coach Jason Cherry thought both teams played well enough to come away with a victory.

“It was a good matchup,” Cherry said. “Both teams played hard even though there may have been a few tired legs out there.”

Cherry mentioned this because both teams were coming off of games that went to overtime.

In the first half, Eastern managed to earn set pieces and keep the ball within their offensive side of the field. This did not translate into many shots though, as Eastern could only take one shot despite having four corner kicks.

The second half seemed to be a bit more promising for Eastern.

Though they did not earn the number of set pieces that they had in the first half, Eastern finally began to get the ball into scoring position and made the Jacksonville State goalkeeper work.

There were a handful of second-half occasions that began to indicate a potential Eastern go-ahead goal. This continued into overtime.

“We were trying to attack a little more with our wide players in the second half,” Cherry said. “We tried more an over-the-top approach instead of the strategy to go around defenders in the first half.”

The first of the two overtime periods brought more opportunities for Eastern, but nothing came through.

In the second overtime, forward Hannah Miller almost forced a walk-off on two chances within the goal box in the 103rd and 105th minutes.

“We would have really liked to win this one at home,” Cherry said. “We tried to keep the tempo up near the end there, but we’ll take the point.”

Eastern seemed to control the game for the most part and tightened up on defense almost every time Jacksonville State created an offensive chance.

Probably the brightest spot on day for Eastern was the performance of goalkeeper Maddie Lyon.

Lyon continued her consistent work by recording five saves and collecting live balls near the goal box on a number of instances.

“I think Maddie did really well,” Cherry said. “She made all the saves that she had to make. We’re going to need more of that out of her if we expect to win games and hang around in conference.”

It was Lyon’s second shutout of the season and first since the team’s opening game.

She recently said that she’d like to post a few shutouts during the conference schedule, as she did today and will look to do again soon.

Miller led the team in shot attempts, with three total. Forward Molly Hawkins couldn’t break through the defense very often and ended with just two shot attempts.

Despite being outshot 17-8, Eastern was a lot more efficient than Jacksonville State. Eastern managed to put five of their shots to be on goal, compared to less than half of their opponents shots reaching goal.

Cherry was happy with his team’s play and will look to build upon this defensive effort.

“We really wanted to come away with three points today,” Cherry said. “But we’ll get back in practice this week and keep trying to get better.”

Eastern will host Tennessee Tech on Friday and Morehead State on Sunday.

Elias Albert can be reached at 581-2812 or at ewalbert@eiu.edu