The Eastern volleyball team saw its three-match winning streak snapped at the hands of Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis Tuesday night.

The Panthers were tied with the Jaguars at 26 late in the first game, but IUPUI took the game by scoring the final four points to win 30-26.

In game two, Eastern found themselves down 18-13 but won 13 of the next 19 points to take a lead at 26-24. However, the lead was short lived as IUPUI outscored the Panthers down the stretch to win the game 30-27.

It appeared as if the Panthers were going to be swept out of Indianapolis after trailing the Jaguars 19-17 in game three, but Eastern fought back to take a 25-23 lead and scored the final five points of the match for a 30-23 victory.

The Jaguars didn’t stay down for long as they quickly regained the momentum by taking a 9-4 lead in game four. The Panthers never managed to get closer than five points down and dropped the game and match 30-21.

After the match, Eastern head coach Brenda Winkeler pointed to the Panthers lack of ball command for the four-game loss.

“We had no ball control tonight,” Winkeler said. “The score got tight (in the games), but we had too many unforced errors.”

With the win, the Jaguars improved to 9-9 on the season and have now won four straight matches. Although the Jaguars have played well recently, Winkeler believed if Eastern played more fundamentally solid IUPUI was a team the Panthers could have defeated.

“We gave away to many free balls tonight,” Winkeler said. “(When you do that) it will make any team look good.”

On the positive side, Erica Gerth had another solid match. The junior outside hitter had 16 kills and 18 digs in the four games. With the 16 kills, Gerth moved into ninth-place all-time on the Eastern kill list surpassing Diane Kruko’s 1031 career kills. It was the second honor on the day for Gerth , who earlier was named as the Ohio Valley Conference Player of the week after she averaged 5.62 kills while hitting at a .263 clip.

Shanna Ruxer also played superb in the loss with 10 kills and a match high 6 blocks. This was the second straight match Ruxer had double digits in kills as she posted 12 against Tennessee State last Saturday.

Also of note, was the play of the Panther’s two setters Nikki Fowler and Leanne Kreps. Fowler added a team high 21 assists and freshman Kreps chimed in with 20 assists.

Despite the sluggish showing, Winkeler is hoping the non-conference loss will inspire the Panthers as they meet OVC foes Austin Peay and Tennessee Tech on the road this weekend.

“It was a poor performance tonight,” Winkeler said. “Hopefully this match will motivate us for the weekend.”

Winkeler said the Panthers need to forget about the loss and concentrate on conference play.

“We have to put this loss behind us and come out strong for the OVC play this weekend.”

With the loss the Panthers fell to 6-12 on the season.