The crowd stands silent, awaiting the end of the blowout, which senior Sam Scopel’s rugby team has delivered to the opposing team. The cold wind licks at Scopel’s face; his only relief is the warm sticky blood slowly trickling from his skull. Scopel, the team’s fly half (quarterback) slams the ball to the ground inside the “try-zone” scoring for his team. The Saint Louis Rugby Academy is a high school team, which only plays collegiate teams, because of their advanced skills. They have already this season beaten Washington University, and several other college rugby teams.

“I really love playing the sport because it’s a unique sport,” Scopel said. “It offers two aspects which appeal to me- brutal physicality, with the grace and finesse of soccer.”

Scopel spent his first three years as part of the FHN boys soccer team, and he has now evolved to playing rugby, which is a cross between soccer and football.

“This sport just really fit me, because my whole life I had played soccer, and this incorporated soccer with a more rigorous aspect,” Scopel said.

Scopel’s team is a highly competitive group of athletes from across the greater Saint Louis Area. He plays for a high school team as well, the Parkway United team.

“Yeah I would say we are pretty solid as a team, a lot of our team has been playing for a number of years, which is important because it’s such a new sport and a lot of the teams our age aren’t as advanced as we are, which leads greatly to our success,” Scopel said.

John Watson coaches the team. He has endless knowledge to offer the team according to Scopel.

“I would definitely say that our teams success is largely due to our coaching staff,” Scopel said. “Our head coach played professionally in New Zealand, which is the single biggest Rugby country in the world.”

Scopel plans to continue his Rugby playing in college at the University of Alabama, where he already has an academic scholarship.

“I definitely plan on playing in college, I am going to Alabama for academics already, but I have already talked to them, and I will be walking on to the Rugby team there as well freshman year.”