When the Panthers started the 2007 season, it began a lot like the last.

Eastern shut out its first two opponents: the Indiana College All-Stars, 83-0, and Purdue, 73-0.

The Panthers had shut out seven of 10 opponents in the 2006 season.

Sophomore fullback Ashley Jenkins said the season looked like the team was going back to the old routine – not only winning, but winning by a lot.

But it is not the way things went from there on out.

Early in the second half of the game against Purdue, Eastern’s senior flyhalf Eileen O’Rourke went down with a possible ACL injury.

O’Rourke was a centerpiece for the Panthers, and head coach Frank Graziano said she was the girl that put everything together and made it work.

“Without her, we were lost; it was a huge blow not having her on the field,” Graziano said.

The Panthers were next slated to play against West Chester. It was the first match-up between two NCAA teams.

Graziano worked on organizing the game and had been talking about it for years.

Eastern lost 20-19 to the Division II Golden Rams, but Graziano said it wasn’t what the game was about.

“Sometimes the result of the game is secondary,” Graziano said. “While it would have been great to win, it was nice for us to just be able to participate in such a monumental event. The girls played their hearts out in that game; there wasn’t anything more I could have asked for.”

The next loss wasn’t as easy for Graziano to look past.

The Panthers lost to Indiana 41-14.

“It was definitely the most disappointing, to lose by that much to a team we demolished 77-0 last year,” he said.

It was not only losing the game that hurt. During the game, it seemed like players were going down left and right. The Panthers played with less than 15 players and made adjustments in the middle of the game.

After the Panthers lost four players, the official called the game with 11 minutes remaining.

“It was the first time we had ever played with three and four players down. The girls were panicking and struggling to play in positions they weren’t necessarily comfortable with,” Graziano said. “We wish we hadn’t taken that loss, but we got a lot more comfortable playing shorthanded, and I think that helped us grow a little bit throughout the course of the season.”

After the loss to Indiana, the Panthers had a two-week break and went on to win their last six games of the season.

The wins, however, were not as flashy as Eastern was used to, and Graziano said although the team did win the games, some of them weren’t pretty.

The Panthers allowed for a total of 119 points this season, the most in Panther rugby history since it began in 1998.

“Defense has always been Graziano’s big push and is always something we stress,” O’Rourke said. “This year, we just didn’t get it done defensively, and the games were a lot closer than they should have been.”

Graziano said that every year the Panthers set their goals to have an undefeated season with shut outs every game.

“The goals bar is set very, very high for us every single year, which can or cannot be a good a thing,” Graziano said. “With the expectations being so high and having the pressure to perform at that level all the time, you would think that there has to be a letdown somewhere, and sometimes there is.

Graziano said overall, this season was good. There were some letdowns, but there were also good things that came out of the season.

“I think we learned a lot about playing through adversity and challenges; there was definitely a lot of that this year,” he said. “It seemed like no matter what was thrown at them, from week to wee,k the girls still took it and played hard. Last year, it seemed like the wins just happened, and this year, part of the team was about taking the challenges and making something out of them – and they did a good job of that.”