It’s a good thing we don’t award any hardware to the winner of these Friday Night Rugby matchups, because each of the two teams facing off this week would probably have to build an extension onto their existing trophy case to fit it.

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This week features a top-tier women’s interdivisional matchup between the University of Northern Iowa Panthers and the Blugolds of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. The Panthers, perennial contenders in DI, enter the season as the #3 ranked team in the newly formed DI-AA while UWEC begins the season ranked #4, despite finishing as the second-best DII team in the nation last fall.

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The Blugolds’ slide in the preseason rankings can be chalked up to the same specter that haunts all college programs: graduation. The team lost around 12 seniors from last year’s team including All-Americans Heidi Schmelzer, Kloee Chamberlain, and Cerys Ridd. The team will certainly look a lot different when they take the field for the first time on Friday, but you don’t win a national championship three of the last four years without having some depth.

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Coaches are confident that all-stars Kaitlynn Moore and Olivia George can step up and fill the shoes of the players that have moved on. The team will also rely on last year’s rookie of the year for the program, Kahlyn Geiger, to build on her outstanding performance from the number eight position at the finals in Houston. Maggie Behnke, making the transition from the wing to the center position this season, is another player to watch for Eau Claire in this game and beyond.

UWEC’s coaching duo of Derek Wagner and Rachel Lange have been able to sustain this level of success by focusing on organization and structure, making sure everyone knows when and where they’re supposed to be on the pitch, and then empowering players to be creative and riff off of that foundation. In this match, the Blugolds will look to be organized on offense, aggressive on defense, and utilize their team speed to quickly flow from sideline to sideline.

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For the Panthers, the goal is to contain UWEC by being disciplined in their tackling, making sure they are utilizing effective double tackles, and folding right away to avoid overloads. The team can’t let Eau Claire control the pace, and they’ll be looking to play smarter, not harder, as the team lacks some of the overall athleticism that previous UNI squads have possessed. Luckily, the Panthers have seasoned players like All-American Emma Hastings, Tatum Schiltz and Aurora Stepleton who can combine their rugby IQ with a high workrate and make impact plays in the middle of the field.

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It’s also not fair to say that the Panthers completely lack athleticism as they boast a number of dynamic finishers including superstar Morgan Linck, Macie Graves, Avery Bird and Charlye Willis. Linck is returning from an incredibly busy summer on tour playing 7s with the NCR Griffins in Portugal before captaining the All-American side in England. Graves, a freshman, was the top high school rugby player in Iowa her last two seasons playing for Cedar Falls High School. Oh and, by the way, she was also a state champion wrestler for her high school, Dike New-Hartford.

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Speaking of rugby IQ and athleticism, let’s talk about Panther’s head coach Meghan Flanigan – a UNI alum who was a collegiate All-American, a U23 all-star, and played a number of seasons as a professional in the WPL. Flanigan returned to coach the Panthers in 2016 after the tragic death of her coach, Steve Murra. Murra started the program in 1994, coaching for 21 years and leading the team to two National Championships, four Final Four appearances, five Elite 8 appearances and over 12 Sweet 16 appearances.

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Flanigan has done plenty of winning herself, bringing home a national championship in 2022 and taking her team to the Final Four each year. This summer, she joined her star player Linck in England, helping to coach the All-American side along with Michigan head coach Jamie Frech, and says that, while there, she realized the importance of keeping it simple.

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That has been the focus for the Panthers in practice since Flanigan returned stateside: read what’s in front of you, make effective decisions, and communicate. UNI hopes to use layers and crash runners and contain as many defenders as they can with dummy lines and then pull it out back and get it wide to their finishers, who should have a lot of two-on-one opportunities if all goes according to plan. The Panthers have a little extra motivation in this game, and this season, as they play in honor of their teammate, Sadie Hennings, who is currently serving in the armed forces overseas. The team will be wearing warmup tops this season with "Sadie's Squad" on the back to honor her while she's away.

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This game is the season opener for both teams and so each squad expects there to be a little rust. Both coaching staffs hope to use this game as a measuring stick for the rest of the season, to learn about themselves as a team by testing themselves against a quality opponent.

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Wagner and Lange at Eau Claire are mostly interested in seeing their squad play aggressive, cohesive defense. They want to get a sense of how well the team, with all of its new components, can communicate and whether or not they can match the physicality of a DI-AA side.

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For UNI, the goal is probably to avoid the same scare that The Blugolds gave them last year on Homecoming weekend in October. When the two sides met in 2024, the Panthers escaped with a 38-36 victory in front of their home crowd.

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Both teams hope the match will reveal a lot about who they are, and teach them some valuable lessons that they can take back with them into conference play. Whatever the result, the game is sure to reveal to the fans some excellent rugby on an early Fall Friday in Wisconsin.

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Kickoff for the game is at 8pm EST. It will be streamed live on the NCR YouTube page.

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Read more college rugby news at TheCollegeRugbyShow.com.

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