Eastern split their dual meets Sunday at Lantz Gymnasium, beating McKendree 31-13 and losing to Ohio 30-6.

The Panthers’ win over the Bearcats was their first dual win of the season.

“We were a little tired coming in, and it was a rough day for us,” McKendree head coach James Kisgen said. “The Eastern kids did a good job of sticking it to us when we were down.”

Sophomore Kenny Robertson (174 lbs.), sophomore Greg Perz (184 lbs.) and heavyweight Pete Ziminski all recorded pins in Eastern’s victory, with the quickest coming from Perz, 3 minutes and 9 seconds into the match.

“Confidence is going to be the big thing with (Perz),” Eastern head coach Ralph McCausland said. “He has the ability but needs to continue to go for full, hard matches.”

In the Panthers’ duel against the Bobcats, Perz and Robertson were the only Eastern wrestlers able to duplicate their success and win two matches on the day.

Perz won a 9-4 decision and Robertson won a 5-2 decision.

“(Robertson) is a beast,” Ohio head coach Joe Greenlee said. “He’s tough on top, he’s tough on bottom and he’s tough on his feet.”

Greenlee said he was disappointed in his team’s hustle prior to today’s meet and thought that made the difference in Sunday’s meet. McCausland knew there was a small margin between winning and losing in the dual.

“We came up short on a couple matches,” McCausland said. “But we have some guys who are right on the bubble.”

Two of those wrestlers were 133-lbs sophomore Casey Carrino, who lost 4-2 against Ohio, and 149-lbs. freshman Shane Dintelman, who lost 3-0 to Ohio and won 4-1 against McKendree.

“I saw some good things, but there were also some fundamental mistakes,” McCausland said. “That’s part of the youth of the team.”

One of Eastern’s few upperclassmen, Ziminski, wasn’t able to pull off a win in a close match at heavyweight. Ziminski lost 4-3 in the last match of the day and couldn’t turn Ohio senior Jeremiah Beltran for the near-fall points he needed to pull ahead.

“We got a little impatient in that match, and we shouldn’t allow that,” McCausland said.