Immediately after Eastern’s 3-1 loss to Illinois State, Panthers’ head coach Steve Ballard had his team come to the sidelines and raise their hands above their heads.

While the team held their hands above their head, they brushed their hands off signifying the immediate memory loss Ballard hoped would occur after the loss to the Redbirds.

“There wasn’t a lack of focus or effort today, it was just that things didn’t click for us today,” Ballard said. “I told the girls to forget about this one. Learn what they can from the loss, but forget about the bad result.”

From beginning to end, the Panthers had chances, but they couldn’t seem to capitalize on them.

Eastern had the same amount of shots and shots on goal as the Redbirds accumulated but Illinois State struck early and often, flattening any chance the Panthers had to come back.

The first goal of the game came only 12 minutes into the first half when Redbird forward Meghan Boler found the back of the net.

“We attacked really well in the first half and scoring the first goal of the game was a huge confidence boost for us,” said Illinois State coach Pete Kowall. “We have lost a couple of games this year because we didn’t make the most of our opportunities, scoring that first goal was huge for us today.”

Even though Kowall’s team struck first, Eastern had a quick answer when sophomore forward Trisha Walter scored her fifth goal of the season off of a penalty kick.

The play unfolded as Eastern took one of their four penalty kicks and a jumbled mess resulted in a couple of blocked Eastern shots before the whistle was blown. Walter then planted the penalty kick in the back of the net.

But besides that goal, Eastern’s play was limited by a Redbird team that beat the Panthers to certain spots and controlled more of the tempo in the second half. Over the final 45 minutes Illinois State took eight shots to Eastern’s five.

The other two goals for Illinois State came from senior midfielder Robyn Brady and sophomore forward Jaclyn Rucinski.

“This was a hard game to understand,” senior forward Audra Frericks said. “We just weren’t on today, we seemed to be a step behind and didn’t connect with one another, which was frustrating.”

The game against Illinois State was the final game for the women’s soccer team before they start the Ohio Valley Conference season against Austin Peay on Friday Sept. 24.

A new focus for the Panthers is what Ballard is hoping for now that they dropped their first home game of the year.

The Panthers went 4-3 during their non-conference schedule and are anxious to prove themselves against the rest of the OVC.

“A new season starts next week,” Ballard said. “Today was just one of those days when things didn’t go right, but hopefully we can brush all that off and move on.”