Eastern head coach Frank Graziano said although the Panthers do not have a game this weekend, this week might be the most important of the season.

Graziano said he wants his team to utilize the extra time to perfect all the fine details of rugby and prepare for their upcoming game against West Chester at 10 a.m. on Sept. 27 in West Chester, Pa.

“I just hope we can stay focused this week because you tend to always leading up to a game, and we are not leading up to anything but more practice and a clinic,” Graziano said. “Next week will be easy because the team knows the game is coming up and they will be very intense and motivated.”

Graziano said it is also a plus to not have to worry about anyone

getting injured or banged up in a game this weekend.

He said almost everyone will be healthy and ready to go for the West Chester game in two weeks.

Jones will be ready to play

Graziano said junior wing Crystal Jones, who hurt her knee late in the second half of the Iowa State game two weeks ago, could have played Saturday against Wisconsin-Stevens Point but he didn’t want to risk it.

“She is fine,” Graziano said. “There was no way we wanted her being only 80 or 85 percent to go in and risk making it worse.”

Graziano said she should be 100 percent by West Chester next weekend.

“And we will certainly be looking forward to getting her back out on the field,” Graziano said. “She is a very dynamic player and will be a big contribution for us.”

Defense getting back on track

After shutting out Wisconsin-Stevens Point 102-0, the Panthers defense seems to be getting back to its old ways, Graziano said.

He said it seemed as though in previous years shutting people out and playing great defense was the mindset or habit of the team, but they started to get away from that recently.

“For whatever reason we seemed to have gotten out of that habit over the course of the years and shutouts didn’t seem to mean so much to us,” Graziano said. “Even though they still meant a lot to the coaching staff, they just didn’t seem to mean so much to the players. We were trying to get them back into that groove.”

Graziano said he wants to keep that defense-oriented, shutout mentality going into the West Chester game but at the same time be more realistic.

“West Chester is going to put some points on the board against us, that is a given,” Graziano said. “But our job is going to be limiting those points.”

Defense creating strong offense

Senior wing Samantha Manto said the biggest reason she was able to score seven trys in the game against Wisconsin-Stevens Point was because of the defense.

“The defense did a great job of keeping Stevens Point on our side of the field, which made it so much easier for the offense to just run it in when it was already on their side,” Manto said.

The Panthers defense also had 13 total steals at tackle in Saturday’s game.

Graziano said he was impressed with the way his defensive players were learning to turn things around and make offensive plays too.

“The defense did a great job of creating offense because there were many times when we made the tackle, scooped up the ball and scored right from that tackle,” freshman red-shirt freshman scrum-half Narissa Ramirez said. “Everything that we did against Stevens Point was good but we just need to perfect it even more for West Chester.”

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

Eastern freshman hooker Sarah Sremaniak tries to throw the ball away while being tackled by a Wisconsin-Stevens Point 102-0. Eastern next plays against Division II West Chester in West Chester, Pa. (Robbie Wroblewski/The Daily Eastern News)

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