AIC flyhalf Jihad Khabir scored four tries as the Yellowjackets defeated Fairfield 52-13 in ECRC action Saturday.

The victory put AIC at 3-0 in the conference, as the defending conference champs also got tries from Royaal Jones, Marquis Williams, Christian Adams, and Malik Walker. Michele Magistrali converted six out of eight tries. But the day belonged to Khabir who continues to dare defenses to contain him. The flyhalf has a superb turn of pace, and an extra gear after that - a gear he often doesn't need. Khabir also scored four tries last week.

AIC Coach Rob Guiry said his team was uncharacteristically sloppy in the opening half, and led only 19-8 at the break. 

"AIC got by on sheer athleticism rather than playing good clinical rugby for the first 40 minutes," said Guiry. But by "pressing the reset button at halftime", AIC went on to score 33 unanswered points in the second half. Guiry said the Yellowjackets played much better rugby. Fairfield kept at it and scored right at the end of the game.

"The focus wasn't there when we started," said Guiry, whose team scored more than 90 against Albany. "After a blowout last week we looked content to just out-run people. Silly mistakes and a failure to play the referee led to an uncharacteristic half. Our leaders stepped up in the second half though and brought us the W."

Sophomore Nic Franklin made his debut at scrumhalf for AIC, and showed well. He said the game was a tough one. "Some things didn't go as planned, but business was handled as usual," he said.

"We started off sloppy because we played almost too fast," added lock Corey Momsen. "But towards the end of the game we started to find our rhythm and stick to AIC rugby."

Also Saturday NEC continued a good run with a 44-7 defeat of UConn. It was a bit of a statement victory after last week's weird 9-5 decision over Northeastern.

University of Massachusetts defeated Northeastern 29-8. All American Mike Ruther powered over for an early try and a 7-3 halftime lead. But the Minutemen scored quickly in the second period to take control - Terry Cullen touched down and David Buchanan converted and added a penalty to make it 17-3. Cameron Blondin added two for UMass before Northeastern finally found the tryline. But it was, in the end, an impressive opening conference victory for the Minutemen.

So NEC now sits 2-1 in the conference, with Boston College still to play Albany on Sunday. UMass opened their account with a win last week and also look good to contend.

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