Eastern Illinois University announced on May 20 that its baseball team will compete in the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) Tournament as the number two seed. The Panthers, who finished the season with a 31-19 overall record and an 18-9 mark in conference play, are set to play their first game on Thursday at 9:30 a.m. against the winner of SEMO versus Lindenwood at MTN Dew Park in Marion, Illinois.
The OVC Tournament champion will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Regionals. This year marks the fourth time in five years that Eastern Illinois has achieved at least 30 wins in a season. As a result of their seeding, the Panthers received a double bye into Thursday’s game.
In their final weekend before the tournament, Eastern Illinois swept Western Illinois for their third conference sweep of the year. Offensively, they scored 29 runs on 43 hits during that series, with seven players batting over .300 and three exceeding .400 averages. Zak Goodwin led with a .556 average across nine at-bats while Tyler Castro followed with .462 over thirteen at-bats. Mike O’Conor contributed seven RBIs and ended with a .714 slugging percentage.
On pitching, Tyler Conklin was named an OVC notable performer after allowing only one run across seven innings and striking out six batters to earn his ninth win of the season. Anthony Solis allowed just one run over nearly five innings from the bullpen and recorded six strikeouts.
This is Eastern Illinois’s twenty-first appearance in program history at the OVC tournament and its fifth consecutive trip to postseason play. The team holds a cumulative tournament record of 27-29 and previously won titles in 2023, 2008, and 1999. Entering this year’s event as second seed for only the third time ever, EIU holds a historical record of three wins and four losses when seeded second.
Six Panthers received all-conference honors this season including Bryce Riggs as OVC Pitcher of the Year; Chris Worcester and Mike O’Conor joined him on first team All-OVC while James Love and James Geshel earned second-team recognition; Jarrett Kinder was selected for All-Freshman Team honors.
Looking ahead to Thursday’s opener, Quade Peters leads EIU hitters with a .349 average while Mike O’Conor paces home runs (15) and RBIs (53). On pitching staff performance, Riggs completed regular season play holding opponents to just .187 batting average along with an ERA of 3.32 across fourteen games.
