Over the past two games, the Eastern women’s soccer team’s defense has only allowed three goals in the past 180 minutes, two of them coming within a minute on Friday.

The Panthers played Fort Wayne on Friday and won 3-2 in double overtime where both of Fort Wayne’s goals came within a minute late in the game. Similar to Sunday’s game against Western Illinois, the Panthers won 2-1 but allowed their only goal late in the game.

For the Panthers, their play on defense has a correlation with how they play on offense. Compared to last year when they scored only 10 goals, the Panthers are finding a balance of offense and defense.

“We are a team that practices both sides of the ball all the time,” assistant coach Jake Plant said. “We value the fact that when our offense is getting better, our defense is improving.”

Other teams have the mindset of applying pressure as soon as the game begins. Due to the Panthers defense and ability to control the ball, their goal is to try and control the tempo of the game and not to play to their opponent’s advantage.

“If they’re trying to go fast and we want to slow it down, we are trying to take away their initiative,” Plant said. “Generally you’ll find the opposition goes quick, so we want to try and control it, slow it down, and play to our tactic and not theirs.”

One area where the Panthers need improvement on is their ability to control the whole game. Over the past two games, the three goals they have allowed have come later in the game where fatigue starts to set in.

Junior Katie Olsen scored the insurance goal for the Panthers in the 53^rd minute, assisted by sophomore Hannah Heinz. Soon after, fatigue set in and Fort Wayne scored at the 77:38 minute.

“Both games we went up 2-0 and I think we are just missing something, maybe not enough intensity when we are up that much,” Olsen said. “We have to keep the intensity up after we are up.”

Unlike Friday however, the Panthers did not need to go to overtime. The Panthers regained control of the game and did not allow another goal.

“After the game on Friday, we came together and we said if something like that happens, let’s bring it in together as a team and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Olsen said. “Today after they scored again, we brought it in as a team and didn’t let them score again.”

Adam Shay can be reached at 581-2812 or acshay@eiu.edu