Over the weekend, the Eastern softball team lost its first conference series in over a month to the Eastern Kentucky Colonels at Williams Field. 

The Panthers won the first game of the series in an extra-innings thriller by a final score of 5-4, with the game winning run coming in the form of a walk-off homerun by sophomore Reynae Hutchinson. The Panthers lost to Eastern Kentucky in the second game of the day in a close 3-4 contest. In the final game of the series, errors led to Eastern being defeated by a final score of 13-4.

Eastern head coach, Kim Schuette, said she was proud of her team’s effort and resiliency in the game one victory over Eastern Kentucky.

“Our kids really battled on Saturday and pulled out a great game one win,” Schuette said. “We came back several times during that game and were never counted out. They played well in the beginning of that game and we kept getting runners on later in the game. We were that team who just wouldn’t go away. Thankfully we won that game, and it took over three hours, 10 innings and all 20 kids and coaches to do it.

In the second game of the day on Saturday, Eastern fell behind 4-0, but made a run in the bottom of the seventh inning, scoring three runs but falling one run short of tying the game up.

“We came back to leave runners on first and second in the bottom of the seventh with one out and our power hitters up to bat,” Schuette said. “We came up just short, but that was a good game as well.

The final game of the series the Panthers had four errors in the game that resulted in seven unearned runs being score by Eastern Kentucky.

“We dug ourselves a pretty good hole in the first few innings being down 8-0,” Schuette said. “We can’t let such a huge inning happen, especially with what we would call six-plus errors even though the scoreboard will only show four. Our pitching, hitting and communication on the field could have been better. Our defense should have been better.”

Eastern now has an overall record of 24-20 this season with a conference record of 14-8, which is good enough to put them in third place in the conference standings. 

The Panthers still have six conference games left and only trail conference leader Tennessee-Martin in the loss column by five games. Eastern will have a chance to cut that down to two games after its upcoming series this weekend with UT Martin.

Schuette knows how hard this time of the year is for her players with finals approaching and a heavy workload, but  said she is excited and optimistic for the remainder of the season.

“We are going to get revived and refreshed this next day and a half and back to work on Tuesday,” Schuette said. “This is a tough time of year down the stretch with finals, projects, aches, close games, etc., but this is such an exciting time of the  year when you have a tough group of kids who still have a lot of goals to accomplish like we do.” 

Erik Jensen can be reached at 581-7942 or [email protected].