Zach Marsh scored four tries for IUPUI as they beat Miami of Ohio, and that's pretty good news for the freshman, but it was not the best news he got this past week; being upright was.

On October 12, Marsh played a full 80 minutes against Bowling Green. After the game he started feeling pain in his chest.

"After the game i was feeling fine and I was just coughing a lot," Marsh told Goff Rugby Report. "I was going home I was in the back seat, and then I wasn’t feeling too good. My chest hurt really bad."

Marsh went to dinner with his mother, his girlfriend, and a teammate, and during dinner he started to feel worse.

"Then my voice changed, and that was really weird," he said. "It kind of freaked me out."

Things settled down a little after that but Marsh felt bad again the next morning.

"My head, chest, throat—everything hurt," he said.

He was tested for strep throat but told the doctors that it was worse than strep through. So they took an X-ray, and soon he was in the hospital.

What Marsh has was a Pneumomediastinum, which is a pocket of air in the central area of the chest between the lungs. It can be painful, and sometimes quite dangerous. 

Air can get stuck in this area because of trauma or leakage from the lungs or windpipe. This condition is called a pneumopericardium. In other rare cases, so much air builds up in the middle of the chest that it pushes on the heart and the great blood vessels, so they cannot work properly. All of these complications require urgent attention because they can be life-threatening. 

This bubble of air was the result of an air sac in his lung rupturing, and the bubble was growing and getting close to Marsh's heart.

The condition became serious, and Marsh's father let the team coaches and players know what was happening. Quickly everyone came together to send best wishes and prayers, and several players were able to visit him.

It was all very worrying. 

But rest and monitoring was all he needed. 

"The body basically heals itself," said Marsh. 

Marsh was sidelined a week and as he rested the problem healed up. A week later he was able to return to practice.

"I wasn't too nervous going back to rugby practice," he said. "And playing in the game it was just like any other rugby game."

Marsh, who was a standout for Brownsburg HS in Indiana and also toured with Eagle Impact Rugby Academy to Ontario, was itching to play.

"It was a very courageous effort," said Head Coach Joe Richards. "He scored four tries and we was dominant on the defensive side. He was our Man of the Match."