The Eastern baseball team started its 2004 season last weekend playing three games at the Holiday Inn and Suites/Citgo Classic in Louisiana.

The Panthers finished the tournament with a 1-2 record, defeating Southwest Missouri State in the opener and then dropping the next two ball games to the host Louisiana-Monroe and Kansas State.

Although Eastern lost the last two games, Panthers head coach Jimmy Schmitz said two positives came from the tournament.

“The first thing I noticed over the weekend was how aggressive we were at the plate,” Schmitz said. “We swung the bats well and that was our goal going into the tournament.

“I was also very pleased with our defense,” Schmitz said. “The team played very fundamentally sound in the field the first three games.”

One question going into the tournament was how the starting pitching would fare with staff ace Jared Marshall recovering from off-season surgery. Schmitz acknowledged his hurlers struggled in game two against Louisiana-Monroe in a 15-4 loss, but was pleased with the performance of his pitchers in a 6-4 victory against SMS and a 12-3 defeat against Kansas State in the finale of the tournament.

“Kyle Widegren (Five innings, five hits and two runs against SMS) and Kirk Miller (five innings, two hits and three runs against Kansas State) really pitched very well,” Schmitz said. “The way Andy Kuntz pitched against Southwest Missouri I couldn’t have been happier.”

Eastern pulled off one of their biggest upsets in recent memory when they knocked off Southwest Missouri, a 2003 College World Series participant, 6-4 in 12 innings. The Panthers had a 4-2 lead in the eighth before Southwest Missouri tied, but Kuntz pitched his way out of two jams in extra frames and Eastern pushed two across in the 12th for the win.

“With such a young team, we will definitely build off this victory during the season,” Schmitz said. “Two games later we were playing well again tied with Kansas Sate 3-3 in the fifth inning. Then I went to the younger arms (and the game got away), but those kids will mature for us.”

While it may seem like the Panthers were at a disadvantage playing their first games of the season against teams who have been in action the previous two weeks, Schmitz said it was not a valid excuse for the Panthers two losses.

“No, I hear that a lot but that wasn’t the case,” Schmitz said. “We’ve been out practicing and taking swings we just happened to get beat.”

The Panthers home opener against Indiana State was postponed with no make up date set. Eastern will next be in action this weekend for a three-game series at Mississippi.