The Illinois conference is a hybrid league, mixing DI and DII women’s colleges together. The season-openers saw two cross-divisional matches occur, and the DI teams won both.

DI Northern Illinois ran away with a 76-0 win over DII Western Illinois. Ten different players crossed the try line, while flanker Aurora Macek, Gabrielle Dokianos, and Alecia Eschenbrenner combined for seven tries.

“The back line's passes were clean and well communicated, while the forwards were there to support in rucking, tackling, and winning scrums," NIU match secretary Nina Moody said of the team effort. “Staying spread on both offense and defense was definitely a contributing factor [to the win].

“Standout performances go out to team and pack captain Aurora Macek, who was in almost every ruck and scored a total of three times throughout the game,” Moody commended. “Scrumhalf Alecia Eschenbrenner also did an outstanding job leading the backline with accurate passes to the flyhalf as well as getting two breakaways that resulted in two tries.”

Eschenbrenner added three conversions to her point total to lead with 16 points. Helen Hunt, Narmin El-Tillawi, Fatima Khan, Jennifer Robles, Dani Jordan, Michaela Young, and Tiara DeGroote also scored tries.

On the other side of the bracket, Illinois had its hands full with Southern Illinois. Illinois built its winning margin in the first half, as Sirnetra Scott scored two of her three tries, and Ana Vereen dotted down as well. Dani Harkins’ conversions gave Illinois 19 points before the break. Sirnetra opened up the second stanza with her third try, while SIU trailed 24-12.

“After that last try, it was all up to defense,” Illinois forwards captain Julie Ozols said. “SIU had possession of the ball for most of the second half, but we managed to hold them off from scoring until the very last minute, when they scored their third try of the game. We’ve been practicing staying spread out in a flat line for the past couple of practices, and it seems to really have paid off. We have a lot of rookies on our team and they stayed spread out and remembered a lot of what we did in practice. We're very proud of them.”

There was supposed to be a third match this weekend: Illinois State vs. Eastern Illinois. But the program at EIU was recently suspended, and while local administers attempt to install a club program there, the league is left with a hole in the schedule. ISU did manage to schedule a friendly against women's club Springfield Celts and won 45-37. Jess Dombrowski accounted for 35 points, dotting down five tries and kicking five conversions. Carissa Rojas and Dani McLaughlin also scored.

Illinois gets the bye this weekend, which was originally scheduled for Eastern Illinois. Northern Illinois looks for win number two at Southern Illinois, while Western Illinois hosts Illinois State.