After a delay that spanned an hour and 30 minutes because of travel issues, Eastern women’s rugby took the field in winning fashion Thursday.

The Panthers defeated the Lindenwood Lions 43-10 at Lakeside Field to improve to 1-2 on the season.

After beginning the contest down 10-0 on a pair of scores by Lindenwood, the Panthers quickly responded with tries of their own. Scores by sophomore center Madison Kissner and freshman wing Jasmine Gardner knotted up the contest at 10-10.

In the waning moments of the first half, sophomore fullback Nia Wiliams made a few defenders miss en route to a go-ahead try. After a conversion by sophomore prop Kim Youhas, Eastern led 17-10 heading into halftime.

The second half was all Eastern as they tacked on an additional 26 points to seal the victory over Lindenwood at 43-10. Two of those scores came courtesy of Williams.

“I think as a team our performance was good,” Kissner said. “We got some people to score who don’t normally score, which was good.”

Leading the Panthers on offense was Nia Williams with three tries, and Kim Youhas added four two-point conversions to head the Eastern attack.

Junior hook Shelby Pilch and Jasmine Gardner scored their first career try in the win as well.

“It was a slow start for us,” head coach Frank Graziano said. “But we started to improve and it feels good to get the win.”

Eastern is scheduled to face off against Western Kentucky at 1 p.m. Oct. 13.

Nicholas Ruffolo can be reached at 581-2812 or nfruffolo@eiu.edu.