EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — The University of Texas El Paso (UTEP) women's rugby team is on a journey to turn the club team into an affiliated sport one run at a time. Since the USA women's rugby sevens team won the bronze medal in the Olympics last summer in Paris, women's rugby has become a pheno menon that has taken the U.S. by storm. One day, they would like to see the club team get recognized as a full-fledged intercollegiate team at UTEP. But, what is rugby? Players on the rugby team said the sport is a fusion of soccer and football -- where you're put to the test of endurance and trying to score on the opponent's side of the field with an oval-shaped ball. Rugby can be played with 15 or seven players, depending on the size of the team. The UTEP women's team plays rugby sevens. UTEP women's rugby club. Photos taken by Jocelyn Flores/KTSM How do you play rugby? Rugby sevens play 14 minutes of fast, high-scoring games where teams have to move the ball into the opponent's area of the field (pitch) and touch the ball on the ground with two hands to score five points (a try). The games are divided into two seven-minute halves. In order to pass the ball to your teammates, you can only pass the ball to the side or backward, not forward. To move the ball forward, players can only kick the ball. UTEP women's rugby club. Photos taken by Jocelyn Flores/KTSM After each try, the scoring team is given the opportunity to kick the ball through a goal post for an additional two points (conversion). The game isn't stopped with downs like football; it's a continuous flow of running, passing and turnovers until a penalty is called by the referee, a team scores or the ball goes out of bounds. A rugby team is divided into forwards and backs. The forwards are crucial for tackling and gaining possession of the ball. Forwards are similar to a defensive player in football. Backs are behind the forwards and are the point-scorers. The backs run more and do most of the passing. The backs are similar to a running back in football. While the game is a very close-contact sport, the players don't wear protective gear like football padding. Players wear minimum protection, such as scrum caps and mouth guards. UTEP women's rugby club. Photos taken by Jocelyn Flores/KTSM Many rules and regulations also keep the players safe, including the correct ways to tackle. A lot of the young women on the UTEP team have only dipped their toes into the game a few months ago. Annica Henry -- a veteran player, UTEP rugby women's club president and co-captain -- said she restarted the club back in 2021. "In our own team here a few years ago we had four, five, six girls showing up. Now we have upwards of 15, almost every practice of girls who just want to learn. And that's such an amazing thing to see because I was in the sport when women in rugby wasn't really cool. I actually grew up playing on a men's team only, so I played in an all-men's league for about three to four years," Henry said. Prior to attending UTEP, Henry lived in Rhode Island and started playing rugby at 12 years old. Richard Kendle, coach for the club, played rugby professionally for 12 years, including playing at Grand Canyon University and clubs in Illinois, Arizona and Texas. Kendle picked up coaching for the UTEP women's team roughly seven months ago and has helped the club begin to play in games and scrimmages with different city leagues and colleges. As of this reporting, the club is participating in two tournaments, on March 22 and April 12. "I have the absolute confidence that my girls will win the tournament coming up. We've practiced the basics and these girls put everything into every practice," Kendle said. El Paso native and captain of the rugby club, Amabel Estrada, has played rugby since seventh grade. She said in the beginning, she was looking for an outlet for her emotions but eventually fell in love with rugby. Captain of UTEP women's rugby club, Amabel Estrada. Photos taken by Jocelyn Flores/KTSM "I was just looking for an outlet to basically get my anger out. When I was learning about it (rugby), I thought, 'Oh, like, it's tackling.' I saw that it was a sport. So I was like, 'I'm gonna let that out and focus my anger there.' That's just how I fell in love with it," Estrada said. Estrada is glad the sport is picking up traction not only nationwide but in the community. "We get sponsors now like Adidas. It has shown a lot of interest in that people are like, 'Oh, women's rugby in El Paso. That's really interesting. You don't see that a lot here.' So, I guess we've got a lot of attention from it," Estrada said. Rene Castillo, a senior at UTEP, said the rugby community is welcoming and open, despite being a rough contact sport. UTEP women's rugby club. Photos taken by Jocelyn Flores/KTSM "First of all, the girls on the team, it's like a really friendly community. Even though it's like a rough sport, all the girls on our team and on the opposite team, everybody's really friendly. Whatever happens on the field, stays on the field. Like you could knock someone out in the field, but when you get up, they say, 'Hey, that was a nice tackle,'" Castillo said. Ashley Flores, who started practicing with the team five months ago, said she had never heard of rugby before but also agreed that the rugby community is a close-knit group. "I see so many teams, cities and everything coming down just to play that sport, even if it's not an actual game. They come down and they play with their whole heart. I found it really fascinating because it's a good community you can be in. It's not toxic; it's competitive. During a game, some girls tend to cheer you on and say, 'Tackle me. Tackle me harder.' So I like how supportive everybody is. You're part of the community for sure," Flores said. Luna Palacios, who only started playing four months ago, said one of the biggest stereotypes she faces when playing rugby is the roughness of the game, especially from her mother. "My mom said, 'Why are you even getting into it? That's a man's game. You're doing everything that the guys are doing. Why are you doing this?' She was scared that I was going to get hit and that I wasn't going to be able to recover from it," Palacios said. When asked if her mom had seen a game, Palacios said no but that her mom now supports her. "She saw (the game) on a livestream but she said, 'I didn't actually pay attention because I was scared that I was going to see you get hit.' And I did actually get hit in my first game. She saw the scrapes and the blood. She asked again, 'Why are you getting into this?' But she's supportive in her own way," Palacios said. If people are interested in playing, one bit of advice the players give is to go into it with an open mind. UTEP women's rugby club. Photos taken by Jocelyn Flores/KTSM "I think the biggest thing that you need to play rugby is just like a passion to try new things because it's very easy to get swept up in all of the jargon and everything that is associated with rugby. There's a lot of rules which are mainly to keep you safe, but it's a lot of rules and so it's really easy to get overwhelmed. I think if you just go into it with open eyes and open heart, you can literally start with nothing," Henry said. "I think it's just giving yourself the opportunity and trying new stuff. It's not scary once you've done it," Palacios said. "Don't worry about being conditioned or if you think you're not good enough or if it's too tough of a sport for you, you definitely have a role in the team if you join," Estrada said. "It's really nice because of the conditioning and the strength that you gain from it. It's like I'm a small person, but coming to the practices, I feel like I can take on most of the girls in the team," Castillo said. "Building the leads (to get into rugby) is really important but building our community in El Paso is really important, too. I think we really need more of the El Paso community to engage with rugby and come out to our games, come see our UTEP men's team play, that sort of thing to really help us get off the ground," Henry said. If you want to stay up to date with the team or possibly want to join, you can follow their Instagram page for more information. ...read more read less