Loyola’s rugby team’s speed has led them to a victorious season.

The Loyola’s men’s rugby team and Duke University will be the only two southeast teams competing in the regional tournament on April 21 in Philadelphia.

Men’s rugby coach Sam Brock jokingly said that Duke should be nervous about playing them, but he couldn’t deny that Duke will be stiff competition.

“Duke has a really strong rugby team. They’re good,” Brock said.

Freshman fullback Taylor Hightower said that Duke would be a tough team to beat because they are the best in their division, and Loyola has never played them before. However, Hightower said he is confident that his team can beat them.

“Just making our tackles, we can beat any team. It comes down to our defense and ball skills,” Hightower said.

According to Brock, this was probably Loyola’s best season.

“We finished nine and three. Two of our losses were to Western Florida, who won our conference. They were ranked nationally most of the year. And one of those losses was by two points to them, 27-25,” Brock said.

Junior captain Alla El-Jaouhari said that the team has transformed drastically since playing his freshman year.

“We have more experience, our team is more dedicated, more consistency, and we’ve been winning,” El-Jaouhari said.

Alla describes the rugby team’s bond as being more than just teammates.

“We’re like a family though that’s the funny thing about us. We might not be the biggest or the best, but we are very competitive,” El-Jaouhari said.

The players and coach felt that the only thing missing from this season was recognition. Brock said that the more people come and watch rugby, the more they’ll realize what a great sport it is to watch.

“It’s fun to watch and nonstop action. There’s hard hitting that you have in football, but it’s not like you run a play in football and the play last five seconds and you go back in a huddle for 45 seconds. It’s 80 minutes of non-stop action, hitting and scrapping,” Brock said.

Diana Mirfiq can be reached at [email protected]