The Eastern women’s rugby team will face off against Minnesota this weekend at Lakeside Rugby Field. The game is set for Sunday with a kickoff time set for 11 a.m.

It will be the third meeting between the squads, and the second straight year the two teams have battled each other.

The Panthers (4-1) hold a 2-0 series lead after defeating the Gophers 49-0 last season and 77-0 in 2006.

Eastern handled Minnesota well last season, and to prepare for the game this weekend they will go off of the film from last season’s game.

The team plans to mostly just stick to its own game plan but look back to see what to expect from the Gophers.

“I’ll use last season’s (film) as a pretty good judge,” head coach Frank Graziano said. “It will show me what they did in certain situations and what to be aware of. But for right now I’m just adjusting us.”

Unlike last week, the Panthers will look to play their own game against Minnesota. Last week against Northern Iowa, the Panthers made up a new game plan from what they originally play.

Before the Northern Iowa game, Eastern was forced to make some adjustments between players and plays after they received their first loss the week before to Grand Valley State.

The loss to GVS broke the Panthers 29-game winning streak and they felt they needed some adjustments.

They felt these adjustments worked well as they beat a talented UNI team 34-0. After the impressive victory Graziano decided to stick with the changes from last week.

“Were going to keep our game plan where it is with just one or two adjustments,” Graziano said. “Nowhere near as many adjustments as we had for Northern Iowa. That was specifically for them. But we were so successful at it that I’m going to keep it in for Minnesota.”

Graziano said he felt it took some time for the game plan to kick in last week because they did not get their first try until just before the half. But once they got it going it did not slow down.

He said he looks forward to seeing this game plan at full speed for an entire game.

The game this weekend will be the second home game for the Panthers this season, with only two remaining – Oct. 10 against Michigan and Oct. 31 against Iowa State.

Coming into this weekend’s game, senior flyhalf Coartney McKinney is tied for most conversions in EIU history with 121.

So the Panthers will be looking to get on the scoreboard early to help McKinney place herself on top of the record books.

Bob Shaughnessy can be reached at 581-7944 or

rrshaughnessy@eiu.edu.

Game schedule:

October

3 – vs. Minnesota 11 a.m.

10 – vs. Michigan 11 a.m.

16 – at UW-Milwaukee 1 p.m.

23 – at Illinois 3 p.m.

31 – vs. Iowa State noon

Senior Day

November

6 – at Missouri 3 p.m.