With just three games left to play this season, the Eastern men’s soccer team’s next game, being a non-conference match, will have little impact on the rest of the Panthers’ season and postseason hopes. However, that does not mean it is a throw away game for head coach Kiki Lara and his team by any means.

The Panthers will travel to face IUPUI Wednesday and Eastern will look to use the game as a stepping-stone into the final game of conference play and the end of the season.

“These games help us prep for our final conference match, as we want to be playing our best soccer by the end of the season,” Lara said. “This match helps us prepare for that.”

IUPUI will be the worst team Eastern has faced this season record-wise. The Jaguars are 0-12-1 on the season and have been outscored by opponents six to 29 this year.

Lara, though, does not expect the Jaguars to be a pushover team.

“IUPUI is a very tough team and very resilient at the moment,” Lara said. “We expect a very good battle from them.”

Senior Uriel Macias leads IUPUI in goals scored this season with two and is second in shots with 12.

Sophomore Pedro Vellado held up his fair share of the offensive production as well, he leads the team in shots with 14.

In the goal for IUPUI will be redshirt-freshman Michael Buck who has played a majority of the games, eight, for the Jaguars this season. Buck has a .658 save percentage and a 0-7-1 record.

Lara speaks often of wanting his team to be playing their best soccer at the end of the season and they have arguably been doing just that.

“We are really doing a lot of things well on both sides of the ball. We need to take pride in the details it takes to execute at the end of the field,” Lara said. “Both boxes need to be hyper focused and get good results.”

The Panthers have had eight days to recover from their last game against Belmont, which has benefitted the team’s health late in the season.

“We have been pushing our stamina during this break and getting guys healthy as well. We are not fully recovered but we have more time to get there,” Lara said. “We also will use tomorrow as a gauge to see where we are from a stamina point of view and see if we need to push more this coming week to prepare for the final stretch.”

 JJ Bullock can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected]