After winning four out of its last five games, the Eastern softball team is riding high into today’s doubleheader with Bradley at Williams Field.

The Braves (12-29) come into Charleston on an eight-game losing streak as opposed to the Panther’s current hot streak. Bradley is hitting just .229 as a team this season and doesn’t have any players hitting over .300.

Eastern (13-24), on the other hand, is hitting .249 as a team and has two players hitting over .300 and five players hitting .290 or better.

“On paper, we should do real well,” Eastern head coach Lloydene Searle said. “We have to pay attention and focus on the details if we hope to keep our momentum going.”

Unfortunately for the Panthers, that is a problem they’ve had this season when playing outside of Ohio Valley Conference. Eastern has lost its last eight non-conference games and has only won three games in the OVC this season.

But Searle said there is a certain sense of pride when playing in-state rivals. So far this season Eastern is 1-1 in that category, beating Northern 5-3 at the beginning of the season, and losing to Western 5-4.

Searle will send senior pitcher Heather Hoeschen to the mound. Hoeschen has gotten the win in each of her last four appearances for Eastern.

Searle said she will work in sophomore pitcher Andrea Darnell, who is starting to get back into the swing of things after sitting out two weeks, and freshman Karyn Mackie, who is currently playing through injury herself.

“We want to come out strong out of the shoots and get everybody some innings,” Searle said.