Eastern Illinois scored two goals within a minute to take the lead, and never looked back in a 6-3 win over UIC in an exhibition match Saturday afternoon.

"The hope was to build off the Michigan game," which ended in a 1-1 draw, "but Eastern Illinois deserves credit," Sean Phillips said.  "They were well organized, they were ready for us, and they were better than we were in transition.  And that's where they got us.  Their transition from defending to attacking was very, very good today and they deserved to win."

Shady Omar got the Panthers on the board first with a 25^th minute goal.  Alwin Seitz pulled it back less than eight minutes later, scoring his second goal of the preseason.  The teams finished the first half tied at one, but Omar scored two more goals at 48:01 and 49:00 to put EIU ahead for good.

The Flames got off the mat immediately after Omar's third goal and got to within 3-2 on a Pau Mateo goal.  Eastern Illinois pushed their lead back to two in the 61^st minute.  Once again, UIC got back into the match courtesy of Juan Gutierrez.  Julian Smith completed his own hat trick with goals in the 82^nd and 83^rd minutes to account for the final margin.

Mateo and Seitz each played the full 90 minutes, and together they accounted for four shots, and three of the team's five that went on goal.  Graduate transfer Younes Dayekh also played the full 90, and had an assist on Mateo's goal.

Sindri Vilhjalmsson and Andres Vasquez shared the goalkeeping duties, as they did in UIC's prior exhibition.

The Flames will open the regular season at Grand Canyon on Thursday night.