I don’t know if Athletic Director Barbara Burke or anyone else in the Eastern athletic department was willing to call this year’s women’s soccer season a “rebuilding season,” and if they weren’t, I understand why.

The term “rebuilding season” comes with the stigma that the team’s expectations for the season are pretty much nothing and that they are essentially mailing it in, hoping next year turns out better. That is seemingly the consensus, but the Panthers are a different case.

After a coaching change in the middle of the summer, just a few months before the first game, and the loss of Kristin Germann to graduation, one of the most dynamic players in Eastern history, as well as players like Brooke Sill and veteran goalkeeper Jessica Taldone, it was looking like 2013 was about to be a rebuilding season.

After another bottom spot in the preseason Ohio Valley Conference poll, Eastern, a team with a lot of underclassmen lacking the experience of its predecessors, certainly entered the season with a mountain of challenges.

Then after a slow start (the slowest start in history), the team began to turn it around when it mattered the most: in the OVC.

The Panthers started winning.

With a change in attitude and mentality, the Panthers started the conference schedule with four straight wins, one of the best starts in school history, making everyone forget about that non-conference start.

There is no question Eastern is the surprise team in this year’s OVC tournament. The Panthers have a chance to get at best, a No. 3 seed in the tournament with a win over Southern Illinois-Edwardsville this weekend, but despite the seeding, Eastern is in the tournament, a place very few thought it would be.

If Eastern does win the conference championship and go to the NCAA tournament, that would be pretty amazing.

But regardless, the team should go into the tournament with the accomplishments that the players have already proven a lot of people wrong and definitely surpassed what was expected of them.

It’s hard to say what you should expect from a first year interim head coach like Eastern’s Jason Cherry. In his first year, he’s already matched last season’s win total and done it with conference wins, which gets Eastern into the tournament (which is ultimately the goal).

It is safe to say Cherry and assistant coach Tony Castelon are doing something right, making a case for the “interim” label to be removed next year.

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