For most college baseball programs the summer is the off season, but this year the past three months have been some of the busiest in recent memory for Eastern.

The Panthers inked 10 recruits since last spring mainly because of hte help of new assistant coach Mike Roger’s recruiting efforts.

“Without Mike on board we wouldn’t have been able to get some of the players that we did,” Eastern head coach Jim Schmitz said. “He came from Olney and has a lot of contacts throughout Illinois, especially Southern Illinois.

“Without him we would have never known that some of the players were still available as late in the summer as they were.”

One of the players that Rodgers was able to corral was Olney shortstop Aaron Shelbourne. The transfer will likely replace last year’s starting shortstop Jesse Niehaus, who left the team for personal reasons.

“I think that Aaron is going to do a great job of filling in where Jesse left off last year,” Schmitz said. “He will give us more offense than Jesse did. I don’t think that we will be able to replace Jesse’s glove, but (Shelbourne) will drive in more runs.”

Other position players that signed with the Panthers include: catcher Dan Gage, the younger brother of former Eastern pitcher Matt Gage, infielder Joey Hayes, first baseman Mark Maggio and outfielder Pete Stone.

Another one of the needs Eastern filled with their recruiting was additional depth on the mound because of the loss of recruit Tom Lyons, who signed a contract after being drafted in June, and Jared Marshall, who will have surgery on his throwing shoulder in the offseason.

“Last season we used about four pitchers primarily, and that hurt us when we got into the tournament,” Schmitz said. “We got into late April and early May and I realized that we would get in trouble with the depth of our pitching staff.”

The Panthers signed five pitchers in the this summer including Matt Tyson, Mike Shope, Micah Gray, Jordan Pals and Damon White.

“Both Shope and Gray have the ability to be good college pitchers for us and will give us the depth that we need on the pitching staff,” Schmitz said.

With all of the players the Panthers signed, Schmitz says he now has the perfect combination of rookies and veterans to compete for their second straight conference title.

“We are fortunate to have the guys that we had last year coming back,” Schmitz said. “Now we have a good group coming in that will combine with the veterans to give us a very good team.”