Eastern’s chances to make the Missouri Valley Conference tournament are now eliminated after the Panthers dropped two games over the weekend.

The Panthers (5-10-2, 0-7-1) had to win at least one of the games this weekend for the team to stay mathematically in the race for the last spot in the conference tournament.

Eastern continued to struggle against MVC opponents and lost both games to two of the top teams in the conference.in Drake (9-3-3, 3-1-2) and Creighton (9-3-3, 6-0-1).

“We addressed the situation within the conference before the weekend started,” Eastern head coach Adam Howarth. “We just didn’t get it taken care in these two games; we just fell a little short.”

Eastern’s second game of the weekend resulted in a loss on Sunday to Creighton 4-0. Creighton entered the game tied for first in the MVC, and proved how good of a team they were.

For most of the first half, Eastern played evenly with Creighton and the Panthers had opportunities to score goals but just could not take advantage.

Eastern led the Bluejays in shots 8-6 after the first half, but was unable to turn one of those shots into a goal.

But the Panthers could not continue their solid play in the second half, as the Bluejays scored all four of their goals in the final 45 minutes of the game. In a flurry of goals, Creighton put all the space it needed between itself and Eastern.

“We should have had a few goals in the first half because we had some opportunities,” Howarth said. “In the second half, we didn’t mark the people we had to and they took advantage of our mistakes.”

On Friday Eastern also lost, this time to Drake by a score of 4-1. The lone goal Eastern scored against Drake was the second the Panthers had scored all year against MVC competition.

The Panthers were dominated in goals scored versus goals against all year against MVC teams after having a successful start against non-conference competition.

In the nine games Eastern played against non-conference teams, it scored 17 goals to the opponents’ 15. In the eight games Eastern played within the Missouri Valley, the Panthers only managed 2 goals to the competition 23.

“I was disappointed with our production offensively against the MVC,” Howarth said. “But that also shows that the conferences is extremely strong.”

Eastern lost against Drake in a different fashion than it did to Creighton. Against Drake, the scoring mounted for the Bulldogs quickly in the first half while Creighton scored all of its goals in the second half.

Whether Eastern allows the goal early in the game or later, one consistency is the Panthers allow quite a few goals in short periods of time.

“Because of our youth, we let a goal in and things start to snowball a little,” Howarth said. “More goals come quickly because we don’t reach the level of intensity of our opponents this year.”

Now that the Panthers have been eliminated from the conference tournament, the coaching staff has started to look for positive signs from this team for the future.

“We got some players with the ability to make an impact for this team,” Howarth said. “They just need a little time to improve, but we’re not that far away.”