The Eastern women’s soccer team will take the field on Sunday in OVC Tournament play for the first time since 2013.

The Panthers are the three seed, and they will be hosting either six seeded Belmont or seventh seeded Southeast Missouri, who play on Friday.

Both Belmont and Southeast Missouri already played at Lakeside Field this season, and each earned a win.

Belmont beat the Panthers 3-1 on Sept. 28 and Southeast Missouri won 1-0 in overtime on Oct. 11.

Eastern head coach Jake Plant said that the team is confident in their ability to compete with either team.

“We would argue that we played very well in those games and still lost,” Plant said. “The girls want to make sure they play well and win.”

He also said that the team will look to learn from the past matchups, no matter which team advances.

“We’ll look into what they did well against us and see if we can counteract that,” Plant said.

The match against Belmont was closer than the score indicates. Two of Belmont’s goals came on good individual plays.

Their first goal came directly from a corner kick by junior Kameron Ziesig.

Their third came off of a well-struck free kick from just outside the box by sophomore Paige Hewitt.

Against Southeast Missouri, Eastern outshot the Redhawks 13-5.

But Southeast Missouri goalkeeper Bailey Redden made five saves in regulation. She led the OVC with a save percentage of .829 this year.

The Redhawks’ leading scorer Esmie Gonzales scored the game-winning goal in overtime.

If Eastern wins their match on Sunday and advances, they also feel confident against the top two seeds, Tennessee-Martin and Murray State.

Eastern lost to the second seed Murray State 2-1 on Sept. 21. They played top seeded Tennessee-Martin to a scoreless draw on Sept. 30.

It was the only OVC match Tennessee-Martin did not win this year, as they went 9-0-1 in conference play.

“(Tennessee-Martin) went undefeated, but the only team to take points away from them and the only team to shut them out was us,” Plant said. “The girls take tremendous confidence from that, and they know we can do that against anybody. We know we can compete with and play everybody.”

After finishing in either 10th or 11th place each of the last four seasons, Plant said the program is excited to be back in the tournament, and hope to make a run.

“The girls really earned their spot,” he said. “I’m proud of them, but this team wants to win it. Qualifying is nice, but we want to win it.”

The match on Sunday will begin at 1 p.m. at Lakeside Field.

Adam Tumino can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].