BEND, Ore. (AP) -- For most athletes, success is a progression. For Bend's Erica Cardwell, success in rugby was nearly instantaneous.
And her progression is skyrocketing.
Cardwell, a first-year player, made her mark last fall playing for the Bend Vixen in Rugby Oregon's high school girls' league. She led the team to a 10-3 debut season and to fourth place in the state. She scored more than half of her team's points, with 42 tries (goals), for 210 points.
Cardwell, 19, currently plays for both the Bend Lady Roughriders and the Rugby Oregon Girls U19 All-Stars. Cardwell recently was invited to play for the women's U19 Pacific Coast team, which is made up of players from Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and Northern California.
The Pacific Coast team will play later this month in a tournament in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where recruiters from the national women's team will be watching for potential players, according to Bend Lady Roughriders' coach Matt Burke.
Within the first year since she learned the sport, Cardwell has a chance to make the U20 National Women's Rugby team.
"I'm pretty sure she'll make the national team," says Burke. "The national coach has seen video footage (of Cardwell). ... She is definitely on his radar."
What's more, since graduating from Bend High School about five months ago, Cardwell has been sought out by several university women's rugby coaches.
"We would love to have her," says Duffin McShane, head coach of the University of Oregon women's club rugby team.
"I think she just has a natural field awareness," says McShane. "She knows where people are on the pitch (field). She is very aggressive in putting pressure on the other team, on both offense and defense."
The coach notes that in a recent tournament, Cardwell's Rugby Oregon Girls U19 All-Stars defeated UO's "Dirty Ducks."
"It was the only game we lost in the tournament," McShane recounts. "And she (Cardwell) played a huge part in that. She plays a huge part in the team's dynamic in general."
It is not Cardwell's size or brute strength that makes her a standout rugby player. In fact, she stands just 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighs 120 pounds -- relatively light for a rugby player.
It's her combination of awareness, speed and aggressive nature that allows her to pummel the competition match after match.
"It takes most people a year or two of playing rugby to figure out the sport, but Erica seemed to have a natural instinct for many of the skills that many players never develop," says Burke. "Her speed alone would make her a standout player, but she brings so much more to the game. ... She has great ballhandling skills, and when running with the ball she is able to elude and break tackles almost effortlessly. She has a game sense that usually takes players years to develop."
Something about the complexity of rugby and the fact that it is a rugged, full-contact sport make it the right fit for Cardwell.
"I've always been aggressive and stronger for my size, and my speed helps a lot," says Cardwell.
At Bend High, Cardwell ran one year for the Lava Bear cross-country team and two years for the track team. She also was a three-year varsity player in basketball.
But rugby prevailed over all the other sports, and she says it entered her life when she needed it most.
"My senior year, my mom got (breast) cancer," Cardwell recalls. "Rugby was a good thing to distract me. I think that helped a lot. ... It kind of just came natural."
Nora Cardwell, Erica's mother, agrees that rugby has been a positive distraction from the cancer, for both herself and her daughter.
"Rugby came at the right time," says Nora Cardwell. "I just got done with cancer treatment (chemotherapy). And for her first game she had her head shaved and had "Mom" written on the side (of her head). ... Even going through cancer treatment, we -- me and her dad -- made it to every single one of her games."
Erica Cardwell puts every ounce of herself into each game. And she is not afraid to get hurt.
"Last year I broke three ribs," says Cardwell. "And then over the summer I separated my shoulder and then I went to Colorado (for rugby) and I re-broke my ribs. I've been trying to heal up. But every time I play a game again, I get hurt. But I love it. ... It's just something I'm good at and it feels good. It's worth the pain."
Cardwell is simply determined to win.
"If her team gets behind she will take it upon herself to put points on the board, almost to a fault," says Burke. "She has had some pretty serious injuries for most of the time she has been playing, but she refuses to sit out or even to slack off."
At a recent match at Sky View Middle School in northeast Bend, the Bend Lady Roughriders played against the Portland Piglets. Cardwell, who usually plays the scrum-half position, darted around the field and was seemingly everywhere all at once. In the first five minutes of the match, she salvaged the ball from a scrum cluster and sent the ball sailing off to a teammate who then scored a try with a breakaway.
Cardwell scored two tries of her own, and the Lady Roughriders won 38-0.
"I love the sport," says Cardwell. "With rugby you'll be kicking the crap out of each other and afterward you have a big social and it seems like everyone is teammates."
Cardwell currently lives in La Pine, where she works making sandwiches at a local deli. She says she is still uncertain about her educational future. She adds that she may join the Air Force branch of the military and perhaps play rugby for its team.
"One of the (Air Force) recruiters got ahold of me and that could actually be my job there," says Cardwell. "You get paid to play rugby."
She may train to become a police officer -- one of her dreams, she says -- or study dental hygiene.
Whichever path she chooses, rugby will be there with her all the way.
"This is a new sport to her," says UO's McShane. "For her to be as good as she is now, that makes her a very unique rugby player."
