For the second time in three weeks, Eastern had a game on the schedule canceled.

Saturday’s game against the Texas Longhorns, supposed to be played in Little Rock, Ark., was canceled because of several Texas players being injured. This comes after a Sept. 30 game against Northern Illinois had been canceled. A make-up game against Purdue was scheduled and took place on Oct. 6.

Texas head coach Rachel Suniga said the team had only played one game before this weekend and the reason for Saturday’s cancellation is because of injuries to her players. She said she had a concern that her team’s lack of experience, combined with those injuries, that her team wasn’t ready for such a tall task of playing Eastern.

“Four of our 18 players are hurt,” Suniga said.

Some of the Longhorns have neither rugby experience nor training Suniga said.

“This is our second year as a club team,” Suniga said. “Half of our squad is brand new to the sport.”

Suniga said she felt disappointed that they did not hold up their end of the deal playing Eastern.

Panther head coach Frank Graziano said he didn’t get a chance to talk to Suniga about why Texas had to cancel, but had notification from one of the players.

“Some of their players’ communicated with us through e-mails and phone calls,” Graziano said.

Graziano said practice was excellent the week heading into Saturday’s game, which made it more disappointing because Eastern is playing well and they would like to keep their good play going.

“I like to think I’m pretty good at making up games, Graziano said. “I made a promise to the seniors to make a memorable year.”

Eastern is off to a 5-0 start and has only allowed its opponents to score 10 points this season.

“I was really upset and disappointed,” senior scrum-half Stephanie Rasmusen said.

“We will continue to play out the rest of our season as strong as we have and not worry about it because it’s in the past. I’m sure coach will do everything for us to play 10 (games).”