The women’s rugby team caught a break this week when the team learned senior center Ashley Jenkins will be able to play this Saturday at Iowa State.

Jenkins, who injured herself in the final minutes of the 31-0 victory against Grand Valley State on Saturday, is off to a hot start this season as she already has two trys and three assists in two games, compared to her four trys and five assists in 10 games last season.

The bad news from last week’s game is that freshman wing Kayla Heal will not make the trip to Ames, Iowa, to play Iowa State Saturday, after she injured her ankle last week.

“We’re not planning on even taking (Heal) this week,” said Eastern head coach Frank Graziano. “She needs probably a good 10 days. We think if everything goes well we will be able to get her cleared to play in the Milwaukee game. She’s going through rehab and the swelling has gone down, but it’s a long season for us so were not going to risk it.”

Senior No. 8 Stephanie Militello also bruised her ribs in last week’s game but should be ready to go for the game.

“Kelsi (Wright) is going to get the start (at the No. 8 position),” Graziano said. “We are going to put Kelsi Wright in Stephanie’s spot to see if we actually need to play Stephanie right now. If we can get her the weekend off to heal a little bit more, that would be excellent.”

Refs a part of game

This season Eastern started to use new Midwest Conference referees. They started using more this because they play many clubs in the Midwest Conference.

A key to the Panthers’ success is their ability to spread the field and out run the opponent.

In order for them to do this, they must have referees who know what they are doing on the field.

“I think it’s important for the refs to be involved in what we do,” Graziano said. “Some of the refs that are coming here are part curiosity and part they want to be exposed to this a little bit. We have a superb referee this weekend, and I’m excited to have him ref our game. We also do very well when we have good officials.”

Crowd big part of win

A big part to the Panthers’ victory last week was the large crowd they had for their home opener.

A crowd of 204 people showed up to cheer on the Panthers.

Graziano believes there was even more than that.

“I would say we were probably closer to 300,” Graziano said. “We had a nice crowd, and they were very enthusiastic. It was a wide open game, and they cheered us on very well. We love playing at home. I think the community and university supports us very well, and I’m very pleased to try and put a good product out on the field.”

Bob Shaughnessy can be reached at 591-7944 or

at rrshaughnessy@eiu.edu.