Eastern lost its Ohio Valley Conference opener to Morehead State University Sunday afternoon, 5-1 at Eagle Soccer Field in Morehead, Kentucky.

The Panthers (2-5-3, 0-1) had no answer for the attacking ability of Morehead State (4-3-3, 1-0). The Eagles exploded for a season high five goals thanks to a hat trick by sophomore forward Hetta Ornberg.

Five goals conceded by Eastern is the most in a single game during the tenure of head coach Dirk Bennett and most since the team lost 5-0 twice in the span of a week to Wisconsin and Cincinnati in 2021.

Bennett says with the progress made by the team in previous games, it’s hard to argue against this performance being a step in the wrong direction.

“Disappointed is certainly the emotion that our staff is feeling and I think the team is certainly feeling as well,” Bennett said. “We just came out flat, and we found a couple of spurts in there, but just a very flat, arguably soft defensive performance from us.”

Morehead State was up 2-0 by halftime. The Eagles mustered 10 shots with four of them being on target.

Eastern’s redshirt sophomore goalie Ashlyn Hoover made two saves, one of them from point blank range and the other a diving effort. Hoover finished with five saves.

Two of the five goals conceded by the Panthers came because of Eastern not being able to clear the ball well enough. Bennett says the defensive breakdowns are new problems that the team hasn’t experienced much in recent games or practices.

“[The breakdowns are] a bit bizarre but I gotta own that as a coach,” Bennett said. “There’s something in the preparation and I gotta do better.”

Eastern’s only goal came from sophomore forward Abby Reinl, who scored her first goal since Aug. 18 in the team’s 1-1 draw against Akron.

Reinl collided with the goalkeeper right before she grabbed control of the ball, then Reinl got to the loose ball, turned and shot in what seemed like one motion, and scored.

Morehead State wanted a foul to be called, but the referee wouldn’t give it and ended up giving an Eagle player a yellow card for dissent in the aftermath.

Eastern had put the ball in the net again with about 10 minutes to go, thanks to a big scramble right in front of the goal involving multiple players on both sides. That would’ve made the game 3-2 in favor of the Eagles at the time, but the referee disallowed the goal for a foul committed by Eastern. Bennett says that he was unable to get a clear answer from the official on who exactly committed the foul.

Eastern seemed to run out of energy after that, as the Eagles scored two more times in the final 10 minutes.

Eastern will return to Lakeside Field to face Lindenwood on Thursday. Bennett knows that the team has some major defensive issues to iron out.

“It’s going to take some soul searching this week,” Bennett said. “We’re going to have to get real busy on fixing the problem first. Until we prove that we can defend at our maximum capacity every game, we’re going to have to work on that every single practice.”

Kickoff on Thursday is set for 3 p.m.

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