| P
hoto Gallery (by Sandy King)
CHARLESTON, Ill. - The Eastern Illinois men's soccer team celebrated its 2023 senior class defeating the Screaming Eagles of Southern Indiana 1-0 on Thursday afternoon at Lakeside Field. The Panthers improved to 4-8-4 overall and 3-4-2 in the Ohio Valley Conference.
To stay in the fight for a spot in the OVC tournament, Panthers and Screaming Eagles needed the victory in tonight's match. With that in mind, both teams did not hesitate to go after the goal from the first whistle. Within the first twenty minutes, six shots were fired, as five of them came from the Panther's offense. At halftime, EIU had the lead in shots 9-5 with sophomore and senior midfielders
Adrian Lechuga and
Julian Smith leading the attacking actions with three and four shots, respectively.
In the second half, both teams started to feel the pressure of the clock ticking not in their favor, as a scoreless draw would not be beneficial to either. The Panthers tried to find the back of the net with shots from
Kyle Kimberling,
Anton van Efferink,
Jared Cornejo, and
Sam Eccles, but were unsuccessful in all of them. The Screaming Eagles responded with four shots on goal, but saw goalkeeper
Chad Smith stopping all of them.
With four minutes left on the clock,
Sam Eccles sent the ball into the penalty kick spot to find senior defender
Maxwell Allen. Allen took the shot that was deflected by a couple of defenders before finding the net to give EIU the 1-0 lead. It was Allen's second goal of the season, as the senior was gifted to finish his last match at Lakeside Field with a winning goal.
Chad Smith posted four saves in net for the Panthers to reach his fourth shutout of the season as well as the fourth clean sheet for EIU.
With the victory, the Panthers move up to fifth place and eleven points in the OVC standings to wait for the remainder of the matches taking place tonight for a chance of clinching a spot in the postseason tournament before Sunday's match.
Up next: The Panthers will travel to Edwardsville on Sunday to close conference play at SIUE. Kickoff scheduled for 12:00 p.m.
