The Panthers were able to get a victory on Sunday to halt their losing streak at five games. Eastern beat Indiana-Purdue at Fort Wayne 2-1 despite not playing their best game. After losing on Friday to Dayton 2-3, the Panthers bounced back on Sunday to split their weekend games 1-1.

With the victory over IPFW, the Panthers improve their record to 3-5 after winning their first two games of the year and then dropping their last five.

Panthers head coach Adam Howarth didn’t think his team played great on Sunday, but he will certainly take the victory any way he can.

“We didn’t play as well as we did on Friday,” Howarth said, referring to the Panthers 2-3 loss at Dayton. “That’s the way soccer is sometimes, you can play better in some games and still lose, but also play not as good in other games and still get a win.”

On Sunday, Eastern scored their first goal when Jimmy Klatter scored his third goal in three games. Klatter ran down the left side in the 37th minute scoring his fifth goal of the year to give the Panthers the 1-0 lead. Klatter then fed freshman Joel Del Toro in the 81st minute to put the game away and allow Eastern to leave Fort Wayne with the victory.

Starting at goalkeeper was Justin Cronin who earned his first college win while recording three saves.

“Today we had a lot of chances to score,” Howarth said. “We should have put them away earlier in the game but we’re still happy to get the win.”

On Friday against the Dayton Flyers, the two teams went into the second half tied at 0. Dayton opened up the second half scoring the game’s first goal only 28 seconds in.

In a four minute stretch beginning in the 74th minute, both teams combined for four goals. Klatter and Mick Galeski scored for the Panthers during that four minute stretch.

Dayton finally went up for good in the 77th minute scoring on a header to give them a 3-2 lead. Mike Comiskey had two assists for the Panthers in the game.

Despite losing the game, Howarth saw a lot of positives come out of the loss.

“It was a great game, unfortunately we were on the wrong end of it,” he said.

Eastern did have a number of chances to win the game, according to Howarth, but fell just short of leaving the field with a victory.

“We really played great in the second half,” Howarth said of the loss. “And it seemed we didn’t deserve to lose the game.”

Mike Sims started at goal for the Panthers after missing the game on Wednesday due to an injury. Sims had seven saves in the game for the Panthers.

Eastern will have a break until Friday after a long week of playing three games in six days, all of them being on the road.

On Friday Eastern begins conference play against Bradley at Lakeside Field. They have not played a home game in a month.