Eastern baseball and softball both swept their weekend series, with the baseball team beating Tennessee Tech and the softball team doing the same at Tennessee State.
The sweeps strengthened both team’s standings in the Ohio Valley Conference.
Here’s a recap on how those series went.

Baseball
The Panthers (19-17, 9-5) beat Tennessee Tech (24-16, 9-6) in both games of a doubleheader on Thursday and won the series finale on Friday.
Eastern won game one of the doubleheader 8-6 after using a three-run fifth inning to take a 6-1 lead. The Panthers added two more runs in innings six and seven and hung on thanks to junior right-hander Dalton Boruff getting the final five outs for his team-leading third save of the season.

In game two, Eastern once again took the lead thanks to four runs scored early in the game. In the second inning, junior outfielder Ethan Rossi hit a line drive to right field. The Golden Eagle right fielder didn’t cut the ball off before it rolled all the way to the fence, allowing two runs to score and Rossi to get to third base.
Senior outfielder Quade Peters drove Rossi home with an RBI base hit, then stole second base and scored from second on a ground ball up the middle by senior utility Tyler Castro that ended up being an infield single.
Junior third baseman Mike O’Conor’s home run extended the Panther lead to 6-2, but four runs scored by the Golden Eagles tied the game 6-6 in the eighth inning.
After a scoreless top of the ninth, O’Conor was hit by a pitch, and after a sacrifice bunt and a groundout, O’Conor stood on third with senior infielder Sam Wiese at the plate.
Weise, who didn’t start the game and didn’t travel with the team in its previous series at Southeast Missouri, needed a hit to win the game.
“On deck, I was just trying to stay as calm as possible,” Weise said. “I was trying to realize that this could be the moment for me.”
Weise hit the first pitch he saw sharply to the first baseman, who couldn’t react in time, and won the game on a walk-off single.
“I think everybody knows how hard he works,” head coach Jason Anderson said. “He’s a great person and he works hard and that’s why we play baseball, for things like that to happen, and he stepped up at the right time.”
Redshirt junior Kole Bradley was credited with his first win of the season after getting the final out of the eighth inning and pitching a scoreless ninth inning.
The Panthers started senior left-hander Eli Cartwright in game two, and after getting the first eight outs of the game, Eastern turned it over to senior righty Christian Carew, who pitched a season long four-and one-third innings in relief.
“I think I’m just building on a lot of confidence,” Carew said. “I’m understanding that I have the pitches to beat anybody.”
Friday’s series finale was a game that hinged on a few close plays. The Panthers loaded the bases in the fifth inning after replay overturned an out call at third base, then senior shortstop Jake Ferguson drove in two runs to make it 6-0.
Ferguson would later make an important defensive play, catching a line drive with two outs and the bases loaded in the seventh inning to preserve a 6-1 lead, which the Panthers held onto until the end of the game.
The sweep moves Eastern into third place, half a game behind the two teams tied for first place and a half a game ahead of Tennessee Tech, who went into the series alone in first place.
“We just needed to break free and have a weekend like this to show that we can do it,” Anderson said. “We could win a championship, and we did that this weekend [broke free]. I mean, that was the first-place team.”
Eastern plays at Butler on Tuesday and hosts Illinois Wesleyan on Wednesday before going on the road to play at Southern Indiana in the OVC this upcoming weekend.

Softball
After three games against Tennessee State, the Panthers (25-17, 17-3) are still alone in first place in the OVC.
Eastern got out to a 4-1 lead in game one, and held on to win 4-3 thanks to the fifth save of the year from sophomore pitcher Karlie McKenzie.
The difference in game two was junior infielder Kendall Grover, who drove in four runs of the five the Panthers scored in their 5-1 victory. Grover’s RBI single tied the game in the third inning, and she later scored in that inning to give Eastern a 2-1 lead.

Grover came up in the fifth inning and hit a three-run home run to make it 5-1. She was named OVC player of the week after getting five hits across the three games and driving in eight runs.
Game three was scoreless until Tennessee State (20-17, 10-10) took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the fifth inning. The Panthers countered with a game-tying sacrifice fly by Grover in the top of the sixth, before scoring five runs in innings six and seven to win the game 8-1.
Eastern now sits two games ahead of Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville in first place and faces the Cougars this upcoming weekend at Williams Field after the Panthers play Indiana State on Tuesday.
For Eastern to clinch the regular season title against SIUE, the Panthers would need to win at least two games of the series and then have SEMO lose its series against Southern Indiana.
If Eastern, who has won its last 10 straight conference games, were to sweep SIUE, then SEMO would need to win all its games to still have a chance at the regular season title.
Eastern would become the fourth team since 2000 to win back-to-back OVC regular season championships, and the title would be its fourth in program history.
Gabe Newman can be reached at 581-2812 or at ghnewman@eiu.edu.