Buses drove close to 200 students from Ike’s to the Illinois Ice Arena in Champaign to watch the Eastern hockey club take on the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign on Friday and Saturday.

After falling 3-2 in overtime in the late night contest Friday, the Panthers bounced back in the second game to split the series with a 6-4 win on Saturday.

In a back-and-forth game, the score was tied at 4-4 with just under six and a half minutes to play in the game.

The Panthers responded just a minute later, adding another goal to make it 5-4 with just over five minutes to play.

The Illini pulled its goalie in favor of an extra skater with under a minute left, and Eastern added the insurance goal to seal the victory with a 6-4 win.

Junior Andrew Maronich said the overtime loss on Friday inspired the team to come out and perform on Saturday.

“I thought definitely the third period of the first game was kind of a motivation,” he said. “We played pretty well in that period, came back and tied it up, went to overtime. So, we knew we could play with them, we knew we could beat them this game.”

Maronich said the team fed off the energy of the third period and carried it over into the second game.

Maronich also said beating rival Illinois is a huge win for the team.

“It’s big, especially here in front of all those fans,” he said. “There’s a senior on our team who says he hasn’t beaten U of I in all five years he’s been here. It was huge. All the boys are pretty excited.”

Maronich said the amount of fan support was a definite factor in the Saturday night win.

“We knew that (the fans) were coming out, we knew we were going to have support,” he said. “They got here kind of late, so they missed the first goal. But we definitely fed off their energy.”

He said the fans were a large part of the team’s win.

“We knew that they were there. They made themselves loud and clear,” Maronich said. “And definitely, no doubt about it, they were part of the win. It was definitely nice to have them here and definitely nice to give them the W.”

With the split this weekend, the club’s record is now 6-5-1.

The next matchup for the team will be against another in-state opponent, Northern Illinois.

The two teams will play a two-game series, starting at 7:30 p.m. Friday and 1:30 p.m. Saturday in Dekalb.

Dominic Renzetti can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].