Eastern’s baseball team has a lot of ground to make up early on in the conference standings.

The Panthers currently are tied for seventh place with a 2-4 OVC record, but the last place team (Eastern Kentucky) is 0-3 in conference play and the sixth place team, Southern Illinois Edwardsville, is 3-3 in conference play.

The top half of the conference has already seemed to separate itself from the lower half, led by Belmont (5-1 in the OVC). Morehead State, Austin Peay and Murray State are all tied for second place with a 4-2 conference record.

While not in first place in the OVC, Austin Peay has undoubtedly made the biggest splash of the season already.

Defeating a team from one of the power conferences in collegiate athletics is one thing, but the Governors took it one step further and defeated the No. 1 ranked team in NCAA baseball on Feb. 27: Vanderbilt.

Not only did the Governors defeat the Commodores, they defeated the Commodores on their home field.

Vanderbilt is now ranked eighth in the nation since then.

The Governors won the game in dramatic fashion, too, scoring their game-tying fifth run in the top of the ninth inning, scoring their sixth and seventh in the 10th inning.

Vanderbilt nearly tied the game back up in the bottom of the 10th, but only scored one run and ended the game by having a runner thrown out at first base.

The Governors were not the only OVC team to take down a power conference team so far this season, though, as Morehead State made its own splash (not as big as Austin Peay’s) with a win over West Virginia Mar. 13.

Unlike Austin Peay’s win, Morehead State defeated the Mountaineers at home. Nonetheless, defeating a team from a school that size is nothing to scoff at (even though West Virginia is not a top-25 team).

The Eagles trailed 4-0 after just the first two innings of play, but in the bottom of the second, they scored five runs, taking the lead and never surrendering it en route to a 9-6 victory.

There is a lot of season left to go, so the divide in the conference between the top and bottom halves has time to close.

Even so, the wins Morehead State and Austin Peay have under their belts suggest the rest of the conference needs to start turning things around and fast to avoid a late-season panic for wins.

Dillan Schorfheide can be reached at 581-2812 or dtschorfheide@eiu.edu.