Eastern men’s soccer is seeing some improvement in Head Coach Josh Oakley’s second year with the team.

The Panthers are 10 games into the season and at this point last year they had allowed 24 goals and scored 7. This year they have scored 10 goals and allowed 16 goals in 10 games. 10 goals are also the amount that Eastern scored all of last season.

Senior forward Sam Eccles leads the team in points (eight), goals (three), shots (21), and shots-on-goal with (15). Sophomore forward Casey Welage leads the team in assists with three. Junior goalkeeper Whelan Joseph leads the team in saves with 25 in four games. The leader in minutes is freshman defender Jake McConnery who has played in 10 games and has 900 minutes.

Eccles is sixth in the Ohio Valley Conference in shots, tied for seventh in points, and tied for eighth in goals. Welage is tied for sixth in assists in the conference. Joseph has the most saves in a game in the conference with 12 against Incarnate Word this past Thursday.

Eastern’s next game is against the Houston Christian University Huskies on Sunday at 3:30 p.m. at Sorrels Field. Houston Christian is 2-5-4 and 0-1-2 in the conference and they tied the University of Southern Indiana 1-1 in their last game.

The Panthers lost their last game 2-4 to the University of the Incarnate Word. This brings the Panthers to 2-6-2 and 1-2 in the conferencefe

The two players that scored for Eastern were Welage on a free kick and senior midfielder Felipe Kerr Lourenco on a penalty kick.

Luther Yoder can be reached at 581-2812 or at lyoder@eiu.edu.