For three consecutive years, Eastern has failed to win the Ohio Valley Conference regular season crown.

For three consecutive years, the Panthers have had to go on the road for the conference tournament. And for three consecutive years, Eastern will be headed to the Women’s College Cup after taking a dramatic win in the tournament championship game.

The Panthers needed to go to a shootout for the second straight year, knocking off top seeded Samford 5-4 as all five Eastern players put their penalty kicks past Bulldog goalkeeper Crystall Royall.

After the teams battled to a 1-1 tie through 90 minutes of regulation and two 15-minute overtime periods, the coaches had to choose five shooters to take penalty kicks in the shootout.

After watching Samford beat Southeast Missouri in penalty kicks just two nights before, Eastern coach Steve Ballard was thankful his team had been practicing penalty kicks for weeks.

“We prepared for it,” Ballard said. “We’ve been practicing for three straight weeks. We felt very confident going into penalty kicks.”

Eastern goalkeeper Tiffany Groene started the shootout with a save on the Bulldogs’ freshman midfielder Sara Geiger. Groene said Friday was a good indication of what the Samford shooters were going to do.

“I knew basically where they were going to go,” Groene said. “She went to the left and I got both hands on it.”

All the Panthers had to do is put their shots in and the celebration could begin. The Eastern’s shooters knew after Groene’s save the pressure was off them a little bit.

“All we were thinking was we just had to put it away,” senior Beth Liesen said.

Sophomore Lee Ann Langsfeld followed Geiger’s miss by making her shot, giving Eastern a 1-0 lead in the shootout after the first round.

Samford’s Heidi Kearns made her shot and Sharyne Connell responded by making hers. After Marian Wagner beat Groene to even the score at two, Liesen put her team ahead after converting her try.

Shay Helmlock and Audra Frericks would trade off goals and Samford’s Keala Ryan put her shot in making the score 4-4 with one Eastern player left to shoot.

Put in the same position as she was last year when Eastern beat Southeast Missouri 4-3 in a shootout, senior Teri LaRoche was depended on to make the final shot. LaRoche did her job again nailing it past Royall into the left corner just inside the post.

“It was a clean one this time,” LaRoche joked because she hit her winning shot off the post last season.

LaRoche also said she wanted to put herself in that same position and felt completely comfortable.

“Just the other day in practice, I was hitting them all perfect and felt really good,” she said. “I don’t think I was nervous because of going through it last year.”

Liesen, the OVC Player of the Year and Tournament MVP, gave Eastern an early 1-0 lead in regulation with a goal just three minutes into the first half. The goal was her 20th of the season, which tied an Eastern record.

“The goal came early so it kind of shut the crowd up a little bit,” Liesen said. “It showed them we were there to get the victory and it put them on their heels a bit.”

It looked as if Liesen’s goal would hold up as the game winded down, but with 2:35 remaining, Samford took advantage of a long throw in from Adrianna Zeruche to tie the game.

Zeruche threw the ball to Wagner, who quickly sent the ball to forward Lindsay Shanks. Shanks slotted the ball past Groene for her sixth goal of the season and 24th of her career.

Ballard said his team did well by not losing confidence after giving up the late goal.

We just fell back a little and those thing happen,” he said.

“We did not give up and we played well in a very hostile environment.”

In the overtime periods each team got off three shots but neither team was able to get a good opportunity on net.

Joining Liesen on the All-Tournament team were Groene, Frericks and Rachel Dorfman.

The Panthers will now await to see who they will be playing in the first round of the Women’s College Cup. The tournament selection show will be shown on ESPNEWS starting at 3 p.m. Monday in the Student Recreation Center.