Now that the Eastern baseball team has found its offensive stride that was missing a week ago, the Panthers will try to fill other key holes in another weekend conference series.

Eastern is fresh off an 11-6 win over Robert Morris Chicago, granted, that is an NAIA level team, but still it was an important one heading into this Ohio Valley Conference matchup against Murray State.

Tyler Jones is a key factor in any success coming Eastern’s way when facing the Racers, as he has been lights out on the mound this season with a 2-1 record and earned run average below 1.00.

Now, he has the task in the game on Friday afternoon of containing a Murray State lineup that has scored pretty well in its past few games.

The Racers took two of three games from Southern Illinois Edwardsville last weekend, and they combined for 22 runs in that series.

Alex Stevenson gets the ball in game two for Eastern and he has been up and down this season, but has been thrown in some crucial situations.

He is 1-3 on the year with an ERA near 7.00, but there was a solid outing against Memphis earlier in the season with just one run allowed over 7.1 innings pitched in that victory.

The starter for game three has not been announced yet, but the depth of the pitching staff is sure to be key as always.

Eastern coach Jason Anderson credited that staff after last weekend’s tough series against Jacksonville State, and it will get a chance to battle things out with Murray State who puts two pitchers on the mound that have struggled.

Peyton Hayes tries to limit the power of the Panthers’ lineup as a right-hander, but in five games he is 0-1 with an ERA close to 6.00.

Blake Clynes does his damage with his left hand on the bump, but he has managed to pull out a win this season.

Although he does have an ERA over 5.00 as well on the year.

The Panthers offense has been the story this season as that has been a dependent factor to any success.

While Eastern does come in with nine wins, the only way that will improve is if the offense can produce more runs like they did this week.

And so often it comes with power for the Panthers as Tuesday’s close loss to Indiana State had half the runs scored from the home run ball.

Eastern’s core of its lineup will try to get that going once again with first pitch at 1 p.m. Friday while games two and three follow over the course of the weekend.

Maher Kawash can be reached at 581-2812 or mwkawash@eiu.edu