Eastern’s one and only exhibition game of the season ended disappointingly as the the Panthers lost to the Reebok Lady Stars by a score of 70-59.

The Panthers will use this game as a building block to the regular season.

Eastern played with the lead for most of the first half. The Panthers were able to extend the lead to nine with five minutes left in the second quarter. The effort was good enough for the Panthers to lead by five going into halftime.

“We played real intense and together as a team in the first half,” head coach Linda Wunder said.

The second half was a completely different story, as the Panthers lost the momentum they had in the first half.

Eastern’s front court started to get into foul trouble which, neutralized its attack from down low. Inexperience and a lack of discipline caused the front court players to fall into the foul trouble that hurt the team in the second half.

“With the post players in foul trouble, we did not sustain the same kind of effort that we had in the first half,” said Wunder.

Wunder also had a tough time explaining why her players had a tough time staying out of foul trouble.

“We just didn’t adjust to the game,” Wunder said. “This was the first time we played in front of serious officiating.”

Nevertheless, the Panthers struggled down the stretch and ended up losing by 11 points. One bright spot for Eastern was senior Brooke Gossett who put up a double-double with 15 points and 17 rebounds.

The game gave the Panthers time to start to understand how they should play.

“From this game we can evaluate our team, and we know that we have two weeks to get the kinks out,” Wunder said. “We can see things on film and understand a bit more about our team. And the good news is that the problems I saw from this game are fixable.”

The Panthers will need to fix these problems by Nov. 22, when the team travels to Orlando, Fla., for the Central Florida Classic.