Photos (courtesy of Oregon)
EUGENE, Ore. -- Junior Samantha Manto scored a try with five minutes remaining as the Eastern Illinois women's rugby squad held on to defeat the University of Oregon, 24-15, Friday afternoon. With the win, the Panthers improve to 4-2 on the season.
"Marlise Davidson and Jaki Brophy kept us in the game all day," said EIU head coach
Frank Graziano. "Jaki's effort in the scrum was excellent and we dominated that aspect of the game. Marlise's attacking kicks kept us moving forward as we struggled in the backs all day. Many times she even covered her own kicks creating scoring opportunities. Without a doubt, Marlise and Jaki were the keys to our victory today."
EIU scored first as Molly Clutter earned a five-point try six minutes into the contest. Oregon countered with a three-point penalty kick to pull within two at 5-3. Samantha Manto scored 13 minutes later while sophomore Crystal Jones earned a try, followed by a two-point conversion by junior Victoria Rosales to extend the EIU lead to 17-3. Prior to halftime, however, the Ducks ran in a try to only trail 17-8 at the break.
After a scoreless 18-minute span to start the second half, Oregon got on the board again, pulling within two points of the Panthers, 17-15, following a two-point conversion of their own.
Samantha Manto then secured the EIU victory with her second try and Victoria Rosales put the game out of reach with another conversion.
"Today's contest was a very uninspired effort on our part," said Graziano. "Not sure if the travel had that much to do with it, but I will certainly rethink our travel plans the next time we make a trip of this magnitude. We just seemed out of it all day, making way too many handling errors. Every time we were on attack we seemed to throw the ball away."
Graziano continued, "while we did have some long runs by
Molly Clutter,
Samantha Manto and
Crystal Jones, our missed opportunities kept Oregon in the game the entire time. Plus our tackling was poor all day and we found ourselves out of position many times and all of their scores were the result of missed tackles and poor positioning."
Graziano did see some positives, "if anything, we are learning to win games playing short-handed. For more than half the game we were down two or three players. We are learning to play when over half the team is out of position and make the adjustments necessary to win games like this. This week in practice we will spend more time playing short-handed and with players out of position. This appears to be our normal pattern now, so certainly more practice time is necessary in this area."
The EIU squad will enjoy the remaining weekend exploring the sites around the Eugene area prior to returning to the midwest to face Purdue in a rematch to be held in West Lafayette, Ind. The Panthers crushed the Boilermakers, 73-0, at home this past September.
... for more info, contact Bart Rettberg, Asst. SID
