UCLA rugby vice-president and outside center, Lucas Lacamp, is currently a junior at UCLA studying political science. Aside from his seemingly innocuous studies, Lacamp is a little known rising rugby star, tearing up the pitch.
Lucas was selected to practice with the Eagles down in San Diego the last few months in hopes of gaining selection to the US Men's 7s team. "After training with the US Men's 7s team during October and November, I was fortunate enough to be selected for the first 2022 World Series 7s tournament in Dubai. This has been a goal of mine ever since I started playing rugby so to be able to have this opportunity at such a young age was quite surreal."
Due to the ongoing pandemic, there were two tournaments over back to back weekends, instead of the usual one tournament in Dubai and then the next week in South Africa. The first tournament was played behind closed doors in a 50,000 capacity stadium in the middle of the Dubai desert.
"During our first weekend competing, I didn't play any minutes in our first two games of the day against Kenya and Spain, but was then thrown in the deep end with a start against Argentina. It's very hard to describe what the game was like as I had so much adrenaline that I truly cannot remember what happened, but we drew. Day 2, I came off the bench in the quarter final against Great Britain, the semi final against Fiji and in the final against South Africa. After a great day 2, we sadly lost in the final against a very good South African side."
The following weekend, Lucas was thrown into a new environment, as the previously empty stadium was filled to capacity with spectators.
"The following week, the 50,000 spectators, which included my parents, added a whole new element to the experience. Day 1 started well, I again didn't play against Kenya, but I came off the bench against Canada and Australia, who we very narrowly lost to. We then lost to France and Kenya in our knockout stages day 2 so our tournament sadly ended in a victory against Ireland to come 7th. As it stands, the US is still in the overall top 4."
Even with his rugby commitments, Lucas still find time to balance academics with his practice and travel: "As I am still a full-time student, I had to withdraw from the next tournaments in Spain but I will be available for selection for the following tournaments in February for Vancouver and Los Angeles"
