Deflated. It took a little less than two overtimes and two competitive halves of soccer for Eastern forward Sharyne Connell to become just that, deflated.

With only 15 seconds remaining on the clock in the second overtime, the Eastern attacker scrounged up enough adrenaline to make one last push for her team.

In the process she shook off two Loyola (Chicago) defenders and found herself with an open look ahead at only one more defender and the goal keeper.

Connell decided to take the shot early, and as the shot rose so did the Family Weekend crowd that nearly filled up the Lakeside Field bleachers on Sunday.

But instead of settling near the top-center of the net and winning the game for Eastern, the ball kept rising and wound up just heading over the top of the cross bar.

The only thing that didn’t rise in that situation was Connell herself, as she collapsed to the ground as if all the air in her body was lost as the Panthers (6-3-2) officially remained scoreless and tied the game against Loyola (4-4-2).

“I wanted to lay on the ground all my life,” Connell said. “This was a game we could’ve easily won because from the second half on we completely dominated the game.”

Most of the play in the second half and in overtime was concentrated in Loyola’s defensive zone and the chances that the Panthers did have to score made the game all the more tantalizing of a tie.

“We did everything we could today to put a goal up,” Eastern head coach Steve Ballard said. “But some days things just don’t go your way.

“One thing I will stress to the team is imagination and planning. I want them to visualize the situations they will be in so they can become more successful when that situation occurs.”

Something that Ballard would like to see his team utilize some imagination on are breakaways, which the Panthers were not very successful in capitalizing on against the Ramblers.

“There were two or three chances that we had on breakaways that we couldn’t score off of,” Ballard said. “I think we just need to know what we’re going to do for those chances before we actually start them.”

The Panthers managed to put up five more shots than the Ramblers. The Panther shot total, which came to 14 for the game, came mostly from Connell, and fellow forwards Trisha Walter and Michelle Steinhaus. All three girls had two shots a piece.

“I think we should feel fortunate to come out of here with a tie, considering they (Eastern) outplayed us today,” Loyola coach Brendan Eitz said. “The ebbs and flows of a season are interesting, and hopefully this is a blessing in disguise because we had to fight just to get a tie.”

The Panthers made the most of their opportunities the game before the Loyola match up, when they defeated Morehead State (5-4-1) by the score of 4-0 on Friday.

With the win, Eastern remained undefeated in the Ohio Valley Conference, as they are now 2-0-1 in the OVC.

“If there was a game to tie and a game to win this weekend, the way it turned out is probably the best way possible,” Ballard said. “We needed to take care of the conference game first, which we did, and we knew it would be tough to beat Loyola anyway.”

Against Morehead State, Connell scored two goals, rising her yearly total to three. Goals were also scored by Walter and freshman midfielder Jenny Bock. The latter of which scored her first goal of her career at Eastern.