Despite the Panthers second half efforts, they could not get a win against the Golden Eagles on Saturday in the Panther’s last regular season game.

Tennessee Tech’s win allowed the Golden Eagles to move past Eastern into sixth place in the OVC. The Golden Eagles (11-16, 6-10) earned the sixth seed in the OVC Tournament and will face third-seeded Eastern Kentucky. The Panthers (6-21, 5-11) will have the seventh seed and draws second seed Southeast Missouri.

Tennessee Tech was able to defeat Eastern by 13 points by a final score of 84-71.

The Panthers could have maintained sixth place with a victory against Tech.

Although they moved down a seed, head coach Linda Wunder thinks the loss was a learning experience for the team.

“We did some good things against Tech and that is something to build on for Tuesday,” Wunder said.

Eastern had the lead only once at the beginning of the game. Once Tennessee Tech gained control, they kept the lead for the rest of the game.

Freshman guard Megan Sparks ended the night as Eastern’s leading scorer with 22 points, one shy of her career high. Sparks also had six rebounds, four assists and two steals.

“I thought Sparks was very aggressive offensively,” Wunder said. “She looked for a shot and she took them when she could. It was nice to see her step up and see her make them as well.”

Junior guard Katie Meyers was able to finish the game as Eastern’s second leading scorer with 14 points and six rebounds.

Junior guard Lauren Dailey finished the game with 12 points. Dailey also had three rebounds and two assists.

Eastern had trouble stopping a pair of Tennessee Tech freshman, forward Emily Christian and guard Jenna Baltimore.

Christian finished with a resounding game high 39 points and contributed to the team’s win with six rebounds, five assists, two blocks and one steal.

Christian also made 12 out of 15 from the free throw line.

“Christian had a terrific game and she played very very well,” Wunder said. “She got some of her points from the 12 foul shots.”

Baltimore made 17 points overall and finished with four rebounds, six assists and one steal.

Eastern gave Tech many chances to score from the foul line. Wunder pointed out the post players alone had 13 fouls. Five of the 24 personal fouls were from senior center Brooke Gossett.

Tennessee Tech earned 31 chances to score from the line. They made 24 of the 31 attempts.

Wunder said the turning point in the game came when Gossett fouled out of the game.

“We were making a run during that time and from that point on our run kind of stopped and our momentum shifted back to Tech,” Wunder said.

Tech was shooting 77 percent from the foul line in the first half. They ended the game keeping consistent with their first half foul shots again shooting 77 percent from the foul line.