Last year when Eastern turned its season around, the Panthers started to get things rolling by taking two of three in an Ohio Valley Conference weekend series against Southeast Missouri. The more things change, the more they stay the same as Eastern travels to Cape Girardeau, Mo., in the hopes of accomplishing the same goal.

Eastern (9-26, 6-6 OVC) is in the middle of a jam-packed OVC standings and can possibly jump into third place with a sweep of the Redhawks.

Panthers No.1 starter Kyle Widegren will look to get back on track after struggling in his last two OVC starts.

“If I had a Pedro (Martinez), all my problems would be solved,” Eastern head coach Jim Schmitz said after last weekend’s series against Samford.

Widegren will need to pitch one of his better games as his Redhawk counterpart Justin Herbig is on a momentum high. The junior college southpaw easily looked better on the hill than Austin Peay’s preseason OVC Pitcher of the Year and possible 2005 MLB first round draft pick Rowdy Hardy as SEMO won the opening game of that series last week 6-4.

The Panthers are confident in its next two starting pitchers as Ted Juske and Mike Budde got quality starts with Budde getting a solid victory against the Bulldogs last Sunday.

SEMO (13-22, 4-8) will hand the ball to freshman Texas fireballer Joey Evans and Minnesota junior college transfer Andrew Johnson.

If Eastern can get the bats going against these inexperienced hurlers like Austin Peay did last week, the Panthers will come home happier than they left after losing its last two games.

Look for Eastern to attack Johnson, as his line was more than negative as the junior lasted only one inning and gave up five runs on three hits with two walks.

The Panthers scored 16 runs against UIC, but inefficient work on the mound led to a one-run loss, and then an error-filled contest at Coaches Stadium against Indiana State equaled a consecutive loss.

The biggest reason SEMO is in the bottom half of the OVC standings is because of the Redhawks’ inability to acquire base runners. SEMO is only hitting .266 as a team with strikeout to walk ratio of 2:1.