Not since Oct. 18 of last year have the Panthers participated in a scoreless tie, but after 110 minutes at Lakeside Field on Sunday nothing was settled between Eastern and Vanderbilt.

It was a classic defensive battle with Vanderbilt managing nine shots on goal and Eastern putting eight on target. Considering both teams were held scoreless in their Missouri Valley Conference openers on Friday, the lack of goals didn’t neccessarly come as surprise to Eastern head coach Adam Howarth.

“I know they (Vanderbilt) have had troubles scoring and obviously we haven’t scored to many either, so we knew it was going to be a close, tight game,” Howarth said. “But I thought we might be able to sneak a couple of goals in, and we had a few chances, but it wasn’t meant to be.”

Vanderbilt’s head coach Tim McClements accounted his team’s lack of offensive outbursts to fatigue. The match against Eastern was the Commodores second road game in three days as they traveled to Peoria on Friday to open their MVC season against Bradley.

“I think it’s tough on the second game of a road swing,” McClements said. “You have a lot less energy than you do in the first game and we got hammered at Bradley and that took a lot out of us.”

Although the Commodores were not at the top of their game Sunday, they did have the best opportunity of the two teams to come away with win. At the 85:00 minute mark, Vanderbilt staged an attack deep in the Panthers end. Eastern keeper Casey DeCaluwe stopped Vanderbilt forward, and Charleston native, Curt Hinds’ straight-on shot from three yards away to keep the game deadlocked.

“That was a big-time save,” Howarth said. “It was from point-blank range. The guy hit it and he made a great save. He (DeCaluwe) kept us in the game because that would have been the game right there.

Both teams were struggling for chances in overtime and Eastern’s hopes of winning took a huge hit when freshman defender Jeff Diehl was ejected after he was called for his second yellow card of the game at the 104th minute.

Howarth said the Panthers had to change their style of play after Diehl was carded late in the game.

“We had to be really kind of smart about it,” Howarth said. “We could only play with one forward for the last three minutes, so if we had a chance, we would only go up with two or three people.”

The game against Eastern marked a homecoming for McClements. Now in his second year at Vanderbilt, McClements coached Eastern from 1996-99, compiling a 30-42-4 record during his stint in Charleston. Despite coaching at two schools since his departure at Eastern (McClements was an assistant coach at Southern Methodist in 2001 before coming to Vanderbilt for the 2002 season), McClements said it’s still pleasant to come back.

“It’s always nice to see people and there are a lot of fond memories here at Eastern,” McClements said. “They were my first Division 1-A coaching job and I will always be thankful for that opportunity Eastern gave me. I will always wish the best on the program.”

With the tie, Eastern’s record is 5-4-2 and 0-1-1 in the MVC. The Panthers fell on Friday 2-0 to Western Kentucky. The Panthers out shot Western Kentucky 15-11 but surrendered a goal in each half to suffer the defeat.

The Panthers will next be in action Oct. 10 as they travel to Oklahoma to take on Tulsa.