The Eastern Illinois baseball team just missed qualifying for the OVC tournament after taking two out of three games this past weekend against Tennessee Tech.

Needing a weekend sweep to get past Eastern Kentucky in the final standings, the Panthers won games one and three, but lost game two by the score of 4-3 and finished with a conference record of 14-13.

The Panthers had the tiebreaker against Eastern Kentucky after taking two of three from them earlier this month, but Eastern Kentucky caught a break when they had a game rained out earlier this year, leaving them with a conference record of 14-12.

Head Coach Jim Schmitz said that the team started to get on track towards the end of the year but that overall it was a disappointing year for the guys. He felt that they never really put all three phases of the game (pitching, defense, hitting) together for any stretch of the season.

“We didn’t play quality baseball,” said Schmitz.

The coaching staff has already started searching for guys to bring in that could shore up any needs the team has. Schmitz said they would like to bring in a couple of quality arms and that pitching would be the main focus of recruiting with the entire starting lineup expected to return next season.

In the last meeting of the season the team addressed the overall disappointment of the year and also the positive aspect of bringing so many key players back and working hard to improve.

“If this doesn’t make you work hard, you aren’t a very good athlete,” said Schmitz.