Defensive woes continue

The Eastern men’s soccer team concludes its season Saturday against Oakland, as the Panthers are in last place in the Summit League and will not play in the conference tournament.

Eastern and Oakland are two teams on opposite ends of the league – the Panthers with a 1-5 conference record and the Golden Grizzlies with a 5-1 record.

The Panthers are coming off a loss Tuesday against non-conference opponent Belmont in what was the Panthers’ last home game of the season.

Oakland is coming off a 2-1 overtime victory over Omaha on the road and is playing for the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament.

Miche’Le Lipari and Kyle Bethel lead Oakland. Both players are among the top five in goals this season. Bethel leads the league with 23 points scored this season on six goals and 11 assists.

Eastern is looking at its worth defensive season in 10 years, giving up 2.25 goals per game. The Panthers hadn’t given up an average of more than two goals each game since 2003, when they surrendered a 2.31 average.

This season, Eastern is 189th out of 201 teams in Division I in goals against average.

The game in Oakland, Mich., is set to begin at 6 p.m. on Saturday.

Alex McNamee can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].