American International College played a rare Thursday night game ahead of their Homecoming Weekend, and defeated ECRC rivals UConn 87-16.

The game was AIC’s because they were stronger in the scrum, stole a large percentage of the UConn’s lineouts, and were just too darned fast.

But the Yellow Jackets also made several errors - mostly errors of impatience, dropping the ball, or sending out loose passes when another phase or more care with the ball was called for.

Such impatience actually led to AIC giving up a penalty and falling behind 3-0 early. But pressure from AIC forced a charged down kick and a five-meter scrum just moments later, and No. 8 Matthew Jones picked up and scored. 

After that, the AIC offense began too roll, especially in broken play. Adrian Ray was superb at inside center, at one point powering through a UConn prop much to the delight of his teammates. Flyhalf Jihad Khabir was a constant threat, and he coasted through a gap for AIC’s second try. Jones sold a dummy for another, and in fact on a narrow UConn field, it was the AIC forwards that seemed to have the run of open play. 

UConn had two prime try-scoring opportunities in the first half, but both times, the AIC cover defenders came flying in to stop the threat.

In the second half, UConn’s defense held for about ten minutes, making AIC work in phase play. But unable to win their lineouts consistently, and forced to kick often, UConn was on the back foot too much. Khabir and Ray, as well as Lui Sitama, Christian Adams, and Jones all made ground running the ball back on the counter or on turnovers. Flanker Gavan D’Amore Morrison and Skyler Adams led a strong forward effort.

“Especially the way we trained this week helped in the way we played,” said D’Amore-Morrison. “We worked on pinning them in the forwards; pinning their scrum towards the sideline and working them in a position where they didn’t want to be, away from their resources, and it came into play in this game.”

D’Amore-Morrison said Adams and Momsen are central to a strong lineout.

“A couple of the players who went off to play with clubs in the summer brought back some interesting moves,” said the flanker. 

In the end the tries began to flow. Khabir, especially seemed to punish UConn mistakes with relish.

Connecticut did score a nicely-taken try late in the second half, but there was just too much pace and too much power to contend with.

“Their #13 shot up a lot so I was looking for an overs ball or an unders ball, but if he came up too hard I just took the gap,” explained Khabir, who is only a sophomore and still has all kinds of unrealized potential as a flyhalf. “We just needed to clean it up. Especially playing teams where we know we can run our stem, just clean it up and run the system.”

“Going into this game we knew what AIC is; they keep getting better and better, but I am proud of how our team players. We are a young team and we played all 80 minutes,” said UConn captain and No. 8 James Pesci. “We have 60 guys on our roster, and 40 of them are sophomores or younger. We’re building and coach Morelli and his staff are an integral part of that.:

Paddy Meenan’s try was a nice ending for UConn, and, said Peschi, was a good example for the younger players to see what happens when it all comes together, even against the likes of AIC.

Meanwhile, AIC players we dissatisfied with their accuracy, but still they rolled.

Khabir and D'Amore-Morrison both scored four tries, while Jones added two and five others scored tries.