Live Stats | Game Notes | ISU WSoccer | Miami WSoccer

CHARLESTON, Ill. – With Indiana State and Miami (Ohio) coming to Lakeside Field this weekend, Eastern Illinois women's soccer not only opens the home portion of its schedule, but also kicks off a busy month of September dominated by home dates.

 

Friday's game against Indiana State (0-3) is slated for a 5 p.m. kickoff. The Miami (1-1) game Sunday is set to begin at 1 p.m.

The Panthers (2-1) are scheduled to play each of their next four games and six of their nine contests this month at Lakeside Field. Iowa State and Northern Iowa come to town next weekend.

 

Eastern's last four-game homestand was in September 2006. However, the Panthers have not played five times at Lakeside Field in a six-game stretch, as they will over the next three weeks, since 2001. Due to postponements and cancelations related to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, EIU ended up playing eight times at home during a nine-game stretch that season.

 

Eastern and Indiana State are both under the guidance of new head coaches. Summer Perala has the Panthers off to a good start, winning two of the three games during their season-opening road stretch.

 

Fellow first-time head coach Erika True, who also interviewed at EIU during the offseason, is still in search of her victory in Terre Haute. The Sycamores have lost a pair of heartbreakers early this season, falling in double overtime in their opener at Southeast Missouri and giving up a goal with 85 seconds remaining in regulation Sunday in a 2-1 loss at common-opponent Eastern Michigan.

 

Perala and True were both goalkeepers during their collegiate careers.

 

Indiana State posted two of its five victories last season in the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament. The Sycamores became the first team in the history of the MVC Tournament to reach the championship game as the sixth seed, putting together an inspired postseason run after former head coach Vernon Croft announced in October that he was stepping down at the end of the season. After winning 1-0 games against Drake and Illinois State in the first two games, ISU was unable to topple top-seeded Evansville in the title tilt.

 

Indiana State defeated EIU in Terre Haute last year, with the 1-0 overtime loss snapping a four-game win streak in the annual nonconference series. The Panthers and Sycamores have squared off every year since 2000, which was the ISU's program inaugural season. Eastern leads the all-time series 6-2-1.

 

As a freshman in 2006, Alexis Miller scored the first of her seven career goals in a 3-2 EIU win in Terre Haute. The Panthers were also 3-0 winners in 2007, the last meeting in Charleston.

 

Indiana State is one of four Missouri Valley teams on EIU's schedule this season. Eastern also hosts Northern Iowa (Sept. 13) and travels to Illinois State (Sept. 18) and Evansville (Sept. 30).

 

Miami competes in the Mid-American Conference and has already defeated the Panthers' Ohio Valley Conference rival Eastern Kentucky, 3-0, in Oxford Aug. 23. The Redhawks had to cancel their Sept. 4 home game against Youngstown State due to scheduling quirk involving an exhibition contest. Thus, having been idle the final weekend of August, Miami will come to town having not played in 13 days.

 

With Sunday's EIU-Miami game being the first all-time meeting, the Panthers are set to play the only new opponents on their schedule on consecutive weekends. Eastern was a 2-1 winner at Cleveland State Aug. 30.

The Redhawks went 6-12-1 last season and finished eighth in the 12-team MAC standings. Miami was picked fifth in its conference preseason poll. Head coach Bobby Kramig, who has coached the men's and women's programs during his 27 years at Miami, has built a roster that features five players from suburban Chicago, four players from Ontario and four players from Sweeden.

More Info: Contact Ben Turner, Asst. SID