Issue date: 9/11/09 Section: Sports

Junior flyhalf Coartney McKinney catches a last minute pass from senior No. 8 Stephanie Militello during practice Wednesday afternoon at the Lakeside Rugby Field. After beating Ball State Saturday 90-0 in the season opener, the Panthers will play Grand Valley State Saturday at the Lakeside Rugby Field. (Karolina Strack/The Daily Eastern News)

The Eastern rugby team will put its 17-game winning streak on the line at noon Saturday when it welcomes Grand Valley State to the Lakeside Rugby Field for its home opener.

The focus for the Panthers (1-0) will be to fix the mistakes they made against Ball State last week. Although the Panthers won 90-0, they still said they have some work to do.

"We definitely, as usual, want to focus on defense," senior No. 8 Stephanie Militello said. "We are a defensive orientated team; we need to clean up the chaos. We had some first game jitters. Other than that, it's defense and go wide and score."

Even with the large victory last week, the Panthers know they must come out strong against Grand Valley State, which is coming off a 6-1 season in 2008. The Lakers (0-1) also gave defending National Champion Penn State all it could handle last week in a 19-7 loss.

"We have never played Grand Valley," Eastern head coach Frank Graziano said. "I think they're going to be as good as anyone on our schedule. We need a good win against Grand Valley to build some confidence going into Iowa State, but we will see how we get along with Grand Valley."

The advantage the Lakers have on the Panthers this year is their size. Eastern is not a very big team, but they are fast and will try to spread the field and make the Lakers tired.

"They are a big team, and we're probably as small as we have been, so I think were going to have a disadvantage there," Graziano said. "I think they will want to play a fairly slow paced game, where we want to play fast, so we will see who wins that battle." 

Militello and fellow senior flanker Chase Cain pride themselves on shutting out the opponent.

Against Ball State, the Panthers notched their sixth consecutive shutout, dating back to last season. Cain accounted for 19 tackles while Militello had eight before leaving the game with an injury.

"(Cain) is a great defender. I play defense, and we have some good forwards that are all starting to learn the rotation and how to really play defense," Militello said. "We're looking for our forwards to definitely keep other forwards from moving down the field."

After Saturday's game the Panthers hit the road again as they travel to face Iowa State at noon Sept. 19 in Ames, Iowa.

Bob Shaughnessy can be reached at 581-7944 or at
rrshaughnessy@eiu.edu.

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