The Eastern women’s rugby team is making history, again, by playing their second official National Collegiate Athletic Association game against West Chester University.

The rematch will be played on Sept. 27 at West Chester, Penn. This will be the third NCAA women’s rugby game ever played.

Norwich University and Southern Vermont College will play the second NCAA game on Sept. 6 at Bennington, Vt.

The Panthers competed in the first NCAA game against the Golden Rams at Charleston on Sept. 15, 2007. The contest was a very close match that resulted in a 20-19 Panther defeat.

Senior captain Amanda Fromm said the Golden Rams played very good defense against the Panthers in the second half by limiting them to only seven points.

One reason for the defeat was due to injury. Fromm said former captain Eileen O’Rourke became injured during the previous game so she had to move to flyhalf.

“It was my first game at flyhalf so I didn’t know what I was doing,” Fromm said.

West Chester head coach Tony DeRemer said he is excited that Eastern head coach Frank Graziano decided to face his team again this year. DeRemer said his team has to focus on slowing down Eastern’s backs

Coach Graziano has some wonderfully athletic backs, so our job will be to concentrate on stopping them from scoring,” DeRemer said.

Fromm said that West Chester’s strength is in their forwards. The captain said the Golden Rams’ forwards ran a lot of punches to counter Eastern’s backs.

“We need to be prepared for (the punches) they’ll throw at us,” Fromm said.

A new year

DeRemer has his three leading scorers returning in Michelle Kirk, Whitney Hartshorne and Katy Black. The three combined for 84 of West Chester’s 179 points last season.

The West Chester coach said that Kirk, who scored 30 points last year, scored most of her tries by generating them without offensive support. However, he hopes his team will produce more support around Kirk.

“We’ve got a lot of talented players on the team who are ready to step up, so I am interested to see how the beginning of the 2008 fall season plays out,” DeRemer said.

The Golden Rams were outscored 179-208 in 2007 and when they lost, they allowed an average of 40.5 points a game. They finished 7-4 in the 2007 campaign.

DeRemer said he scheduled the top rugby teams in the nation to compete against, like Navy and Penn State, who would overwhelm his defense.

“It was obvious that our defense struggled against these offensive powerhouses,” DeRemer said. “We’ve got to instill a different mentality in the players regarding defense.”

Eastern finished last season 8-2 and outscored opponents 509-119. The offense averaged about 51 points a game.

For the 2008-2009 academic year, four incoming freshmen will offset the loss of three graduates. Six seniors are returning to the squad.

Top scorers Samantha Manto (160), Victoria Rosales (86) and Molly Clutter (75) will anchor the Panther offensive attack.

Fromm said she will be in charge of warm-ups, drills, and be the play caller on the field. She will also assist the incoming recruits during a short pre-season.

“There is only one week of camp and one of practice for the freshmen to learn the plays,” Fromm said.

Bob Bajek can be reached at 581-7944 or at rtbajek@eiu.edu.