The first half demons that have haunted the Skyhawk football team followed them to Charleston, Ill. as they dropped their third straight conference game, 26-7, to Eastern Illinois.

With starting quarterback Brady Wahlberg sitting out due to injury, the task of snapping the two-game losing streak fell upon the shoulders of back-up sophomore Drew Jackson.

Last season, Jackson started in four games for an injured Wahlberg. He was just 25-of-71 for 236 yards with four interceptions and had one touchdown in those starts.

Capitalizing on UTM’s inability to score early, the Panthers jumped out to a 20-0 lead in the first quarter.

The first points came off a 44-yard field goal. The first touchdown was scored on a 27-yard pass by Mike Donato to receiver Ryan Voss.

EIU tacked on another field goal, this time from 38 yards out, with 3:43 left in the first quarter.

Less than 20 seconds later, Jackson threw his first interception of the game and strong safety Tristan Burge ran it back 32 yards to end the onslaught of unanswered EIU points.

In the first quarter, EIU managed to score an average of 1.33 points per minute.

“It was the crappiest start possible,” said Skyhawk head coach Matt Griffin, “and it didn’t get much better from then on.

Neither team was able to score in the second quarter as Skyhawk kicker Taylor Brown missed his only field goal attempt on the day from 26 yards out.

Hoping to put together some sort of offensive effort in the second half, the Skyhawks scored their lone touchdown midway through the third quarter.

With 7:53 left in the third, senior defensive end Andre Plummer blocked an EIU punt and recovered the ball at the eight yard line. Sophomore tailback Don Chapman ran it in for the TD to bring the score to 20-7.

The Panthers wasted no time getting those points back as they scored on a 3 yard run but failed on the two-point conversion to go ahead 26-7.

With 8:19 left in the game, the Skyhawks put together only their second drive of the game to cover more than thirty yards.

On a fourth-and-five, Jackson threw his second interception of the game. The ball was intercepted on the EIU 0-yard line and returned to the 20.

Fortunately for the Skyhawks, EIU was unable to gain any more points off this turnover.

UTM was to use an EIU fumble to their advantage and found their last drive ending in yet another interception thrown by Jackson.

“We simply gave this football game away,” Griffin said. “Offensively we sucked, and that’s a fact.”

Jackson was just 11-of-24 for a miniscule 60 yards, threw three interceptions and was sacked three times on the night. Jackson also rushed for a total of -9 yards.

“Apparently, when we sit [Wahlberg], it means we can’t throw the ball,” Griffin said. “I don’t understand why we played like crap on offense because [Jackson] was ready and took all the snaps to prepare.”

Chapman managed to rush for 127 yards against the Panther defense and scored the only UTM TD.

Defensively, UTM held the OVC-undefeated Panthers to their lowest point total in a conference game all season.

Leading the team in tackles was free safety Chad McMahan with 13. Behind him, all tied with 10 and a sack apiece were linebackers David Gilmore, Andrew Johnson and Markeseo Jackson.

The Skyhawks come home this weekend to face the Redhawks of Southeast Missouri State, who are coming off a big win against Murray State.

Kickoff is scheduled for noon.