After facing some of the nation’s top programs and suffering several disheartening losses, the Panther wrestling team’s dual meet season is almost over.

Eastern (3-8) hosts Purdue 2 p.m. Sunday at Lantz Gymnasium, which will mark the team’s final dual competition before traveling to the NCAA West Regional meet in Laramie, Wyo.

“We’re going to begin focusing more on individuals,” Panther head wrestling coach Ralph McCausland said. “We’ve got one more dual meet to go before guys begin trying to qualify for nationals.”

The Boilermakers are currently ranked in the top 20 in the nation and are the las in a long list of extremely talented teams Eastern has faced this season. Purdue also has at least four ranked wrestlers, all wrestling in Eastern’s stronger weight class.

“They’re ranked something like 18th or 19th in the country right now and this meet will be a match up of our strengths against their strenghts,” McCausland said. “They’re a Big 10 team with a Big 10 schedule and we’ll need to rise to the occassion heading into the qualifying tournament.”

McCausland said his team’s woes of late are more reflective of a young, inexperience squad facing stiff competition than it is an unconditioned or careless team that just can’t wrestle.

“The only thing they really need to work on is taking advantage of opportunities when they come up,” he said. “There were some opportunities that presented themselves at Northern Illinois and we failed to capitalize on those and ended up on the short end.

“It’s something the guys really have to feel,” McCausland said. “The more experienced they get, the better they’ll be able to feel out those opportunities.”

Sunday will mark the final home meet the Panthers’ lone senior Mike Kelly (165) will wrestle in at home. The meet begins at 2 p.m. in Lantz Gymnasium.