BELMONT – Belmont Hill football coach Anthony Fucillo knows he is pretty lucky.

He has been blessed with not one, but two Division 1-caliber defensive ends headed to Duke on his roster. On one side there is 6-foot-4, 250-pound Thomas Rupley and on the opposing side is 6-foot-4, 230-pound Sampson Onuoha.

“A lot of teams in New England might have one guy, so it is very rare to have two of them on your team,” Fucillo said. “Both of them come off the edge with power and strength – we’re fortunate to have them.”

The biggest beneficiary of the Rupley-Onuoha combo is defensive coordinator Joe LaLiberte. He knows full well that he has been handed a gift.

“It is an embarrassment of riches,” LaLiberte said. “Beyond the fact that they are blessed with pure athletic ability, they are incredibly easy to coach. Both of them are hungry to get better and even after they committed (to Duke), they still have that desire to improve.”

Both arrived at Belmont Hill under completely different sets of circumstances.

Rupley’s mother, Hope, is a member of the faculty at the school. When her son visited the school as an eighth grader, it was a case of love at first sight. As for Onuoha, he arrived at Belmont Hill three years ago via Great Britain and Pennsylvania. The players have developed a good friendship.

“Me and Tommy are super close, we work out together,” Onuoha said. “We actually visited Duke together multiple times and we loved it.”

Rupley starred immediately at Belmont Hill, earning all-ISL honors as a freshman, the first of three postseason awards he garnered. While he earned plenty of individual accolades, it wasn’t until last year where Rupley finally got a taste of what it was like to be part of a winning program.

He played a large part in Belmont Hill’s surprising run to an ISL-7 title, ending the regular season on a seven-game winning streak. Rupley pointed to a season-opening 24-0 loss to Lawrence Academy as a turning point.

“Looking back on it, I think losing that first game was the best thing that could have happened to us,” Rupley said. “We knew we had a good team and we had really good senior leadership, so after Lawrence Academy, we regrouped and had a great season.”

Onuoha, on the other hand, is a relative newcomer to the sport. A standout basketball player overseas, Onuoha was good enough to be selected to represent Great Britain in several youth tournaments. Once he arrived at Belmont Hill, he decided to give football a shot in his sophomore year and a new athletic career was born.

“Growing up, I always played basketball and played for Great Britain in the 16-and-under European championships,” Onuoha said. “I played some rugby in England so I was somewhat used to football when I started playing.”

In less than 18 months, Onuoha went from a diamond in the rough to being recruited by more than a dozen schools. One of those schools was Duke which brought a smile to his face but not for the reasons one would expect.

“When I was in Great Britain, I used to always watch Duke basketball on television, so I liked them,” Onuoha said. “I had been recruited by the Ivy League schools and a few others, but when Duke started recruiting me I was excited because that was my dream school and I committed to them in March.”

Rupley, ranked among the top 100 defensive linemen in the country by several recruiting services, started looking at Duke as well. Less than two months after Onuoha announced his intentions, Rupley finalized his college plans as he gave a verbal commitment to head south and join his teammate at Duke.

“I really liked the academics at Duke,” said Rupley, who had offers from Virginia, Boston College and Penn State among several others. “I like what they are building down there right now.”

As much as Fucillo was thrilled to see two of his players living out their dreams of playing Division 1 college football, he was even more impressed with Rupley and Onuoha as quality young men in his program.

“In this crazy world of recruiting, branding and social media, they’ve stayed so humble through the entire process,” Fucillo said. “They have never made their paths bigger than the team goals. I really believe that one reason we were so successful last year was the way they worked hard every single day.”