The men’s soccer team’s season came to an abrupt end in the first round of the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament.

However, the Panthers feel that their season was still a success despite their early departure from the postseason after failing to qualify for the MVC Tournament the year before.

“The great thing, the exciting thing, is that they got there,” Eastern head coach Adam Howarth said. “Now we’ve got a taste for more.”

Eastern proved several people in the MVC wrong this year finishing in seventh place following a 10th place preseason coaches poll in the 10-team conference.

The Panthers’ started their conference schedule with a pair of wins against Western Kentucky and Vanderbilt, winning convincingly 5-1 and 4-1 respectively.

Then the No. 5 team in the nation and regular season conference champion Southern Methodist handed the Panthers a 4-0 loss. But in the Panthers remaining four conference games only their regular-season loss to Creighton was decided by more than one goal. Eastern fought to a 0-0 draw with the No. 10 team in the country, Bradley, and fell to Tulsa 2-1 and Drake 1-0.

Howarth said he was satisfied with the Panthers’ performances against Bradley, Vanderbilt and Western Kentucky.

Against Western Kentucky, the Panthers were able to create goals out of fewer opportunities. The Panthers took one fewer shot than Western Kentucky and found the net with five of their 14 attempts to Western Kentucky’s one goal in 15 shots.

Junior forward Jason Thompson completed a four-goal weekend against Vanderbilt Oct. 6. Two days after netting a pair against Western Kentucky, Thompson put two more in the net against Vanderbilt to lead the Panthers in a 4-1 win.

Thompson finished the season with 14 goals bringing his career total to 40 and placing him third among Eastern players in career goals. Thompson beat Tony Durante by eight goals and all-time leader goal scorer Damien Kelly by 13.

Despite making the tournament, the Panther conceivably could have finished higher in the conference standings.

The Panthers arguably could have defeated Tulsa and Drake during the regular season, both teams finished ahead of the Panthers in the final standings, to improve their conference record to 4-2-1.

“Obviously (our season) was better than last year,” Thompson said. “But things could have went a little better then they did.”

A 4-2-1 record in the MVC would have met one of the team’s preseason goals.

“We wanted to try to have a winning records in both (conference and games against in-state teams) and make the tournament,” Howarth said. “We were not far away from realizing what we wanted to do.”

The Panthers didn’t lose a single game against in-state schools. The Panthers beat Northern Illinois to open the season with a 3-1 win. They picked up their second win of the year with a 1-0 shutout of Western Illinois. On Sept. 29., the Panthers made up for a 7-2 loss to the University of Illinois-Chicago in 2001 with an 8-0 victory.

“UIC was a great game for us, avenging a loss the year before,” Howarth said.

The Panthers look forward to next year. They will return most of this year’s starters. Only four seniors, midfielder Aaron Aguirre and defenders Bobby Ewan, Ryan Hunt and Ben York started consistently this season.

The Panthers had three freshmen make an immediate impact. Forward Jimmy Klatter made plenty of noise this season finishing second on the team in scoring with 20 points. Goalie Ryan Eames started in all 20 games and made 119 saves. Midfielder Dustin Weiher started in 15 games and made a pair of assists.

“Jimmy had a good solid year,” Howarth said. “Seven goals and six assists are nothing to sneeze at.

“Ryan established himself as a solid collegiate goalie and Dustin Weiher came in and started a majority of the games.”

With all the players returning from this year’s team, Howarth likes the team that he will put on the field next year.

“That’s the exciting thing about (next year),” Howarth said. “All over the field everybody is back. That’s exciting.”