Eastern lost 5-1 to the University of Detroit Mercy Titans Monday evening at Lakeside Field.

Detroit Mercy looked like the better team for most of the game and finally got its breakthrough in the 26th minute, scoring three goals in three minutes and seven seconds.

Freshman forward Jackson Liley scored his second goal in as many games to begin his college career.

That goal gave Eastern hope going into halftime, but it was more of the same in the second half.

Detroit Mercy scored two more goals eight minutes apart from each other to derail the momentum that Eastern had built.

Four out of the five goals that Detroit Mercy scored were from dead ball situations, commonly referred to as set pieces. On multiple occasions, there were scrambles in front of the Eastern net as the team tried to clear the ball but were unsuccessful, resulting in the Titans getting second and third chance opportunities.

“We gotta defend set pieces better, and we got a wake-up call,” head coach Josh Oakley said. “You can call it many things, but we got outplayed today.”

Eastern only had 40 percent of the possession and only mustered two shots on target, compared to Detroit’s 10 shots on target. The Titians also benefited from six different occasions where an attacking chance from the Panthers broke down because a player was offside.

“It’s not going to be hard to take a step forward from this because it’s our worst performance so far,” Oakley said. “Not just in the scoreline but really it’s how to bring the youth along.”

Oakley was unhappy with the team’s mentality today, with five players receiving yellow cards and a lot of mistakes made by inexperienced players.

“We were certainly the team in the first half that waited for the other team to punch us, instead of punching first,” Oakley said. “[The mentality is] probably my biggest concern.”

Oakley said this was the biggest test of the team so far, after playing teams in preseason and the first game of the season that were not Division I schools.

“Take nothing away from our opponents, I thought they were good opponents,” Oakley said. “But now you realize that you’re playing in your own division and you gotta step up.”

The players after the game talked amongst themselves about the game and their mentality.

“[We] switched off for a couple of defensive plays and they kinda compounded,” grad striker Sam Eccles said. “It was tough to get [the goal] back. We scored once in the first half, and we could’ve definitely had a second in the early part of the second half. Maybe the game changes and they don’t score those last two.”

High temperatures played a big part in the result of the game, with the temperature at game time being 91 degrees.

Oakley stated the heat will be a factor for the team in their upcoming game on Thursday.

“The heat is going to be a factor,” Oakley said. “Recovery is going to be big thing for us.”

Eastern will have one more game at Lakeside Field before starting a road trip that will span the entire month of September.

Their next game is against Purdue Fort Wayne, and it will kickoff at 5 p.m.

Gabe Newman can be reached at 581-2812 or at ghnewman@eiu.edu.