Pre-Game Release (PDF) | Game Program (PDF)
CHARLESTON, Ill. -- The Eastern Illinois women's rugby squad will look to complete a second consecutive undefeated season, ahosting a Midwest College All-Star on Saturday's in the Panthers' season finale. EIU is 9-0 on the year, prior to tomorrow's 11 am matchup at Lakeside Field.
PANTHERS CHANGE SCHEDULE
Late season changes were made to the Eastern Illinois women's rugby schedule a couple weeks ago, as the Panthers added a road contest at SIU and a home matchup with Michigan State on Nov. 7.
Unfortunately, with the untimely passing of EIU assistant women's basketball coach Jackie Moore, the regularly scheduled home and season finale versus the Spartans was cancelled, along with all home Panther events the weekend of Nov. 6 and 7.
But fortunately Eastern was able to secure one final game this year in order to finish the season at home, as well as be able to honor the five seniors playing in their last matchup as a Panther.
GRAZIANO ON ALTERED SLATE
“We are excited to have the opportunity to complete our season with senior day this weekend... we cannot thank the College All-Stars enough for being able to add this game to their schedule... over the past eight days I was able to reach out to several Midwest teams and all were very gracious to help complete our season and in turn honor our seniors... we owe them our gratitude.”
FIVE PANTHERS TO BE HONORED
Prior to the start of the game Saturday, five Panther players will be honored and recognized for their years of service to the EIU Rugby program, which is an annual tradition on the home finale each season. Seniors Chase Cain, Ashley Jenkins, Crystal Jones, and Stephanie Militello, as well as early graduate, Tiffany Kennedy, will have a special pre-game ceremony held in their honor.
QUICK LOOK AT WIN AT SIU
In a last-second make-up game, the Panthers traveled to instate foe Southern Illinois on Oct. 31, and came back with a 103-0 route.
Leading all scorers in the win was freshman Lauren Doyle, who had five trys on the day which set a new career high for the newcomer. She also had seven two-point conversions go thru the uprights to finish with 39 points in the contest, just one point shy of tying the all-time single-game point margin of 40.
Fellow freshman Kayla Heal added four trys of her own, while senior Ashley Jenkins and sophomores Narissa Ramirez and Mandie Hurd chipped in two trys in the rout. Chase Cain and Kelsi Wright each had one try apiece as the squad had a season-high 17 five-point trys scored in the game.
PRE-FINALE WITH GRAZIANO
“We are expecting the All-Star squad to have about 20 players, so it should be a competitive matchup... we have practiced well the last two weeks, even with last weekend off, we still continued to practice… our final practice came about under clear skies at night, per the squad's request… one of the things we have been working on was to be more open in our attack, to allow more players to be involved in the game offensively, since we typically we rely on our speed… but instead, we have been trying to allow more girls to get their hands on the ball... some of the players who rarely score during the season have been scoring a lot in practice, which means they are beginning to understand where to be in our offensive patterns… so hopefully that will show up in the game... for the second straight year we are losing some key players to our program... including this and last year we will have lost our top three offensive and top two defenders in program history… we had an excellent recruiting class this year… but will need an even better class next year, which will be a challenge to find the talent and the athletic ability necessary.”
.... for more info, contact Bart Rettberg, Asst. SID
