Eastern was eliminated from contention for the Ohio Valley Conference tournament, losing 3-0 to the Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville Cougars Sunday afternoon at Lakeside Field.
The Panthers (2-12-2) needed to win and for Western Illinois and Southern Indiana to not win.
However, Western Illinois won its game, so even a win by Eastern over SIUE (10-4-3) wouldn’t have been enough for the Panthers to make the postseason tournament.
“You never know when it’s going to end,” assistant coach PJ Allen said. “It’s a great opportunity the guys had just to play at this level.”
Eastern had a few things going its way going into the game: home field advantage, and the knowledge that SIUE had nothing to play for having already been crowned regular season champions on Thursday.
However, the Cougars still looked like a team that wanted to win and bagged their first goal of the game just before halftime.
“It’s tough when your position [in the standings] is sealed, but we wanted to walk into the conference tournament with confidence,” SIUE head coach Cale Wassermann said. “We rested some guys, but we wanted to be intense and intentional about how we played.”
Eastern picked up its intensity in the second half, testing the Cougars with no success. The Panthers finished with 10 shots compared to the Cougars’ 19.
SIUE junior attacking midfielder Karson Gibbs scored two goals in the second half to seal Eastern’s defeat. The first goal came in the 50th minute, with the second coming in the 66th minute.
Eastern’s list of injuries culminated in 13 players being unavailable to head coach Josh Oakley. Freshman defender David Brown was added to the list of players that suffered broken bones this season, and freshman forward Nolan Getzinger was unavailable due to a hamstring injury.
“Last year against SIUE, we rolled out eight non-starters and only three starters [in the starting lineup] because we had the luxury of [already being qualified for the playoffs],” Oakley said. “This year we did the same thing. We’re rolling out again eight non-starters, but we did it because we had to.”
This game was the end of the road for the seniors, who were honored before kickoff. Grad forward Sam Eccles completed his fifth and final year of college soccer.
“I’m proud of the boys,” Eccles said. “We put in a good fight this year with all the injuries. It hasn’t hit me yet, but ending five years of college soccer will definitely hit me soon.”
The entire team engaged in an hour long conversation after the game, with every senior getting a chance to speak.
“I just love [the seniors],” Oakley said. “You’ve got to look at the body of work since I’ve been here. They stayed, and last year they were rewarded with the very first OVC tournament victory.”
Gabe Newman can be reached at 581-2812 or at ghnewman@eiu.edu.
