After vaulting themselves into second place in the Ohio Valley Conference, the Panthers will take a step back from OVC play on Tuesday when they host Saint Joseph’s College, of Indiana.

But Eastern manager Jim Schmitz is relying on a team that he believes will hold the same level of intensity whether they play a Division I-A or II team. Even though this game occurs in the middle of the OVC season, Schmitz believes that Saint Joseph’s will provide his team with solid competition.

“When we schedule Division II opponents, we want them to be the best of the best from Division II,” Schmitz said. “Olivet Nazarene came in and played well against us, and we should expect the same thing from Saint Joseph’s because they will be looking to knock us off.”

Schmitz also believes that unlike football and basketball, there isn’t much of a drop off in talent between Division I and Division II teams in collegiate baseball. That provides Eastern an opportunity to continue to prove to themselves regardless of what level of talent they are playing against.

“I don’t think there is much of a drop off in talent between Saint Joseph’s and ourselves,” Schmitz said. “They got some guys who are swinging the bats well and we will have to be careful with them when we pitch to them.”

For Eastern that shouldn’t be a problem since the pitching staff proved themselves over the weekend against a Jacksonville State team that was projected to be tops in the OVC.

With the return of a healthy senior leader for the staff in Jared Marshall, the depth throughout the pitching staff has improved and now seems to be ready to take off.

But because the team finally seems to be coming together, that does not mean that Schmitz is not finding some things his team could improve upon.

“We still need to focus and play really well for middle of the week games, like this one,” Schmitz said. “We did a good job against teams like Western, and I’m really not that worried about this team losing focus but these games still need to be important to us.”