The Eastern baseball team continues its Ohio Valley Conference schedule when the Panthers take on the defending OVC champion Golden Eagles of Tennessee Tech.

The Panthers are coming off a week in which they beat the University of Illinois in Mattoon Tuesday, before blowing out Illinois College at home 20-0 Wednesday. These wins were fresh off a weekend series against Morehead State in which Eastern scored 48 runs in two games.

Head coach Jim Schmitz said he thinks the team and the offense, in particular, are finally starting to loosen up as the team gets into the mid-season.

“I really feel with the other guys getting a lot of at-bats, we got some real clutch hits in the Illinois game and even at Morehead,” Schmitz said. “So you can just tell they’re having a little more fun, the confidence level is raised up a little bit.”

The Panthers’ mid-week contests saw them use two pitchers against Illinois and five others against Illinois College, including some pitchers who have not seen much action this season until Wednesday. Schmitz said he thinks the bullpen is well rested going into a weekend against the defending OVC champs.

“Especially with (Brent) McNeil going Tuesday, it gives us a chance to really extend him if we need to,” Schmitz said. “(Pitching coach) Skylar (Meade) does a great job with pitchers. We wanted guys to get on the mound, feel a little bit of the pressure of pitching.”

McNeil pitched four hitless innings of relief Tuesday night, striking out seven Illini batters to only one walk. Schmitz said McNeil is available again Saturday or Sunday if needed.

“We really have not extended (McNeil) that long this year,” Schmitz said. “It was really good to see him go extended and even get stronger as he did.”

Wednesday’s game saw red-shirt junior David Ciaglia hit his first home run of the season in his 41st at bat of the year.

“That was the neat part,” Schmitz said. “Dave hasn’t really played well; he hasn’t really hit the ball with a lot of production, so he gets a home run.

You want guys to feel good about themselves when you put them in, the only way they do it is they do well in the game.”

Schmitz said that he thinks if Schmitz said he thinks if the Panthers play the way they have in their first two conference weekends with the exception of one game against Austin Peay, he feels confident in their chances against Tennessee Tech.

“It’s the OVC 2010 defending champs coming in here,” Schmitz said. “We know if we keep doing the way we’ve done it the first three weekends in the OVC and we put together three good games, we feel good about how the outcome’s going to be.”

Brad Kupiec can be reached at 581-7944 or [email protected]