Boxscore (PDF)
MILWAUKEE, WISC. -- Three different Panthers earned two trys as the Eastern Illinois women's rugby squad blanked Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Saturday afternoon, 45-0. The fourth straight win helps move Eastern to 7-1 on the season.
Sophomores Kayla Heal and Lauren Doyle, as well as newcomer Cara Hahne, each notched 10 points via a couple of trys each, while fellow sophomore Kelsi Wright added a five-point run-in of her own.
Junior Narissa Ramirez and Doyle each dished out three assists with Musselman adding another one to now have six on the season.
"We did well today," said 12th year head coach Frank Graziano. "The forwards did great job of stopping some of their attempts at scoring. They had it at our goal line four or five times but we were able to stop them each time.
"We did a great job of stealing the ball down there and managed to kick ourselves out of trouble. It was important for us to hold them scoreless in the first half, as we were playing against the wind in that half. I was very impressed with our forwards on defense."
Senior Coartney McKinney had a nice day in conversions as she finished 5-for-7 for two-pointers in the rout.
Team-wise, the Panthers set a new single-game high for steals-at-tackle with Doyle earning five and senior Emily Harrison collecting three of her own. While defensively, sophomore Stefanie Mahan led with 14 solo stops and five assisted tackles.
On setting a new single-game steals-at-tackle mark, Graziano said that the squad has worked on several drills on that particular part of the game. "We have a practice drill and technique that we have worked on and some of our girls are quite good at it, especially Lauren Doyle.
"Our newer technique is starting to pay off as several of the new girls are starting to use it as well," said Graziano. "Specifically it is important to get up your feet fast when tackling, which is the only time you can steal the ball in the tackle."
Overall, coach thinks that the squad is starting to feel more comfortable in the later part of the season. "It sometimes takes time for the newer folks to get going," he said. "Our confidence is very high right now as well. We are just so much better now then we were in game two and three. I also credit our senior leadership, specifically Emily Harrison's work with the forwards and in our lineouts.
"Our scrums were excellent today," said Graziano. Kristy Young played at prop and did fantastic job, probably the best game of her career. Coartney McKinney going 5-for-7 in conversions is very good as well. Kayla (Heal) and Lauren (Doyle) both had good runs… our plays were working very well… it is important for us to do well on our restarts"
EIU will now prepare for a contest at instate rival Illinois next Saturday (Oct. 23) with kickoff set for noon.
Graziano still thinks there is room for improvement heading into the last three games of the season. "We are still a young squad," Graziano said. "It isn't too hard for me to identify places where we can still do better. One area we must improve on is getting some of our forwards, who all have the ability to run all around the field, involved in the offense more which will open up our offensive threat. Plus our backs need to figure out how to get the ball to the forwards. So this is definitely one thing we will be working on in practice this week. Just basically need to get a few more people involved in handling the ball."
... for more info, contact Bart Rettberg, Asst. SID
