The Panthers finished out their 2003 season with two losses against Bradley and the Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons over the weekend.

The Braves beat the Panthers 3-1 on Friday night. The Panthers finished conference play without a win, which is the first time the Panthers have gone winless in conference since 1996. Eastern then fell to the Mastodons 4-1 Sunday afternoon. With the loss, the Panthers finished their season on a nine-game losing streak.

On Friday night, the Panthers’ continued string of bad luck against Missouri Valley Conference opponents. Preston Good gave Bradley the lead in the 13th minute with a header off a corner kick. Then the Braves’ Chris Brown put in the game winner in the 28th minute.

The Braves had a two-man advantage for nearly the entire second half because of red cards picked up by Panthers Jeff Diehl and Patrick Thomas late in the first half.

The Panthers only score came on a penalty kick by Phil Clemmer, which was his first goal and point of his collegiate career.

In the match, the Panthers were outshot 25-14 (10-6 shots on goal and 10-3 corner kicks).

Sunday’s match started off with both teams battling for control of the game. The score remained scoreless until 20:51, when sophomore defender Dave Brown gave the Panthers their first and only lead of the match. The score remained 1-0 until the Mastodons broke through the Panther defense with freshman midfielder Paul Otachel’s goal. Within two minutes of Otachel’s goal, they scored again with midfielder Derek Hibbard’s goal to make the score 2-1.

Midfielder Billy Foreman put the Mastodons up 3-1 just before the half. Panthers’ head coach Adam Howarth said that the three goals in the 10-minute span was what turned around the match in the Mastodons favor.

With the score 3-1 early in the second half, the Panthers were awarded a penalty kick. Brown was not able to capitalize on the kick as goalkeeper Peter Hachaj made an impressive diving save. Panther midfielder Kurt Kruoa saw this as being the turning point in the match.

“Instead of being a two goal deficit, it would have been just a one goal deficit. We lost some of the hope of coming back after that,” Krupa said.

For the most part of the second half, the Panthers played well, Howarth said. Despite this, they were not able to put any points on the board. The Mastodons closed out the match with a late goal by forward Ben Springman to make the final score 4-1.

Howarth believes that the team played well in some parts in the match.

“We had a good start with early goal and played well in the second half” Howarth said.

At the same time, he was displeased with his team’s performance.

“We gave up three poor goals in 10 minutes and we did not take advantage of our opportunities in the match” Howarth said.

Krupa said after the match, the team did not come out to play.

“We have been struggling lately and it was apparent that no one wanted to get up and play today” Krupa said. “The Mastodons came out more organized to win. They were always one step early while we were always one step late.”

Despite this season’s disappointing ending, Krupa still has high hopes for the team next year.

‘”We have a great group of young guys and hopefully we can get better next year,” Krupa said.

After the match, Howarth described the Panthers season as a tale of two halves.

“In the first half of the season, we had confidence and played well,” Howarth said. “We need to look at ourselves first and change things around here.”