That included both the 7- and 15-player versions of rugby, played on the same size field but with much shorter games for the 7-a-side version. Rugby debuted at the Olympics in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro with the 7-player game.
“I was playing at the highest level that I could and, through that, getting the exposure to play at even higher levels,” she said.
The now 5-foot-4 King was on an Eagle Impact Rugby Academy squad that played three 15-a-side games in Ireland last summer, with a return trip later this month coming. King feels she’s slightly better suited for the 15-player game, though she excels at both.
In June, she was on North American Lions team that competed in the Heidelberg Sevens in Germany and the United World Games, also for 7-player games, in Austria. The Lions won both events.
King usually plays the two prop or one hooker position, which she compares to being on the offensive line in American football. They are the three players who form the front wall in the scrum, the mass of rugby humanity in which both teams lock arms in a head-to-head restart for possession of the ball, which is kicked out from beneath.
