Head coach Frank Graziano said he has noticed that while the Panthers look great in practice, it is hard for them to execute things the same way in game situations.

Graziano said when watching film together on Sunday, he noticed the players were seeing and acknowledging what was wrong but not sure why they did what they did.

In order to try and correct this, Graziano took a laptop to practice on Tuesday night. He showed little clips of film from the Iowa State game and the Panthers discussed what the problem was, then tried to reenact it the way the play should have been run.

“I think it is going to help us recognize opportunities in a game situation that we might have overlooked before,” sophomore lock/prop Kristy Young said.

Young said it was an interesting and new way to break down the film and be able to actually apply it right away.

“My words will work better when they see it on the field and get to do it immediately,” Graziano said. “Now in a live game situation they won’t be thinking, ‘I think I saw this on the film on Sunday, what did coach say I should do?’ It will hopefully be more like, ‘Oh, I already did this and now I know what to do.'”

Juniors get the tackles

Graziano said juniors Stephanie Militello and Chase Cain accounted for the majority of the team’s total tackles against Iowa State.

“Stephanie and Chase sometimes carry the rest of us on their shoulders it seems like,” sophomore flanker Emily Harrison said. “It is nice to have them to look up to and to push us and make us want to be just as good as they are.”

Militello, a flanker, had 15 tackles and 3 assisted tackles and Cain, a lock, had 12 tackles against the Cyclones.

“Chase only played one half this weekend and she got 12 tackles,” Militello said. “That is hats off to her. She busted her butt when she was in the game and she knew exactly where she was supposed to go.”

Miletello said the main focus on defense is anticipating where the play is going to go not where it is at the current time.

“I try to anticipate where the opposition is going to go next,” Militello said. “Sometimes I am wrong, sometimes I am right.”

Ramirez shines at scrum-half

Newcomer Narissa Ramirez is continuing to impress Graziano and her teammates on a daily basis, Graziano said.

“For someone that has only been playing a couple weeks, she looks like she has been playing for years,” Graziano said.

The coaching staff just designed two plays for Ramirez that Graziano said are so complicated he wouldn’t normally even give them to a junior.

“But here she is in her second week of playing the game and we are teaching them to her without hesitation,” Graziano said.

Ramirez said while it was nerve racking at first, she just continues to remind herself of the basic fundamentals that Graziano taught her.

“Anytime I am feeling lost and don’t know what to do, I just try and go back to the basics,” Ramirez said. “There is a lot of pressure for the position that I am in, but I just do my best to stay composed and when in doubt go right back to the basics, and it seems to be working out fairly well so far.”

Brandy Provaznik can be reached at 581-7944 or at blprovaznik@eiu.edu.