With only three weekends left in Ohio Valley Conference play, this weekend may end up being the most important as far as teams trying to position themselves for the conference tournament.

The Panthers will not be overlooking their first opponent, but the second game of the weekend will possibly be the most anticipated matchup of the year.

Eastern will be taking on conference-leading Samford, which has seen their season turn around despite hurdles the team didn’t anticipate.

First of all, the Bulldogs came out this season and did not win a game in their first four attempts, but now they stand at an even 4-4 record and have not lost in three OVC games.

The new faces on the team and a rash of injuries that sprung up before the team could even start slowing down Samford at the beginning of the year.

“You have to look at our early schedule, which was a lot like Eastern in the sense that we played a lot of tough early games out of conference,” Samford head coach Todd Yelton said. “A couple of those games you can’t make excuses for, but still we had some injuries hit us that we didn’t overcome.”

A few of the injured players that hurt the Bulldog team included sophomore midfielder Sara Geiger, junior forward Marian Wagner and, possibly most importantly, their goalkeeper Crystal Royall.

Royall was the OVC second team all-conference goalkeeper last season, and has sparked the Bulldogs so far this season.

“There have been a couple of games that we have come out flat and she has just made some remarkable saves to keep us in the game,” Yelton said. “The saves she makes are a great source of confidence for our club.”

Besides the injury problems, Samford has had some consistency problems considering a couple of their games have been canceled due to hurricane situations down south.

“It has to be tough for them,” Eastern coach Steve Ballard said. “They have played fewer games than the rest of the conference right now, so we’ll see how that plays out for them down the stretch.”

This year’s Bulldog team has found an offensive spark in freshman Rebecca Bohler, who took home the OVC offensive player of the week last year. The defensive player of the week in the OVC was also from Samford, as Royall had a good enough week to take the hardware.

The Panthers also take on Jacksonville State, a team that Ballard believes is much better than their record (4-8-1, 1-2) would indicate.

“This is a team we can’t take lightly at all,” Ballard said. “They have statistically outplayed just about every opponent so far this year.

“They’ve had a few freak plays cause some losses for them this year, but they are definitely better than their record indicates.”

Before the weekend ends, though, Ballard believes that those who play the best will be in the best shape heading into the not so far away conference tournament.

“Whoever leads the way after this weekend will probably be the front runner for hosting the OVC tournament,” Ballard said. “All the teams we play are going to be good, so we just have to focus on making the fewest mistakes and we will be alright.”