After two fall tournaments, the softball team has moved into a conditioning phase of the year before opening up its regular season in February.

Eastern competed in two tournaments: the Indiana State Tournament and the Central Illinois Fall Festival in Peoria.

Not only did both tournaments give the Panthers an opportunity for some competition around the area, but it allowed the coaches and players to gel as a team.

“I really saw some promising things. We’re a team that gets along,” head coach Lloydene Searle said. “The upperclassmen are stepping up their leadership. They focus on being positive.”

With 10 returning players combined with nine new faces, six of them freshmen, the veterans began an important task in the fall.

“I can’t remember a year that we’ve had better leadership helping the newcomers,” Searle said. “They’re not letting them fail before they succeed. If things don’t go their way, they stay positive. Those are key things.”

Eastern began with the Indiana State Tournament where the Panthers faced the Sycamores to a 4-3 loss. Eastern picked up three more wins against Northern Kentucky (3-2) and Goshen (5-2, 7-1) before losing 1-0 to St. Mary’s.

“At Terre Haute, we did a better job of getting base runners in,” Searle said. “At Peoria, we had the same opportunities, and we put the ball into play. We’re being successful in pressure situations, we just didn’t hit the holes much in the second tournament.”

In Peoria, Eastern opened up the tournament against Bradley with a 3-0 loss. Illinois State took a second loss from the Panthers at 1-0 in eight innings. The second day didn’t improve for the Panthers, suffering losses to Southern Illinois-Edwardsville (5-0) and Western Illinois (8-0).

“We’ve got to be faster, quicker,” Searle said. “We’ve been doing a lot of sprint work and weights. We need to be stronger and quicker.

“If we’re one step quicker, that translates into runs. The agility aspect and the quickness is what I’m seeing in this team. That’s encouraging.”

From the two tournaments alone, Searle has seen better hitting and pitching this season.

“We’ve had successful progress in hitting and pitching,” Searle said. “We’ve had two tournaments and overall the team played well. From what I saw in the fall, we’re a better hitting team in terms of driving the ball. I thought we did very well.”

With outfielder Amy Barr as the lone senior on the team, there are seven juniors to support her leadership.

“It’s a little weird – everyone my age is gone, but it’s kinda nice to try to lead and being a senior helps,” Barr said. “We have a large junior class and they’re all leaders on and off the field. They’re not afraid to lead by example and they’re all strong and independent.

“The new people are able to look to them for advice.”

Searle also uses a big sister-little sister program with the team, pairing up the upperclassmen with the underclassmen. The new faces on the team are not unexperienced collegiate athletes.

The freshmen, transfers and sophomores have combined into the underclassmen who will challenge the upperclassmen in every aspect of the game.

“The new girls are very hyped up to play,” Barr said. “They’re not afraid to step up and play. That helps a lot, being able to step in and play. It’ll push the upperclassmen to work harder. No one’s position is secure.

“We have a lot of talent. We need to put it all together and we’ll have a lot of success.”