American International College moved to 6-0 in the ECRC Thursday with an impressive 45-15 defeat of UMass.

The Minutemen went into this game 2-1 and playing some solid rugby, but an athletic and nicely-clicking Yellowjacket squad hit them for two tries in the opening 16 minutes and cruised from there.

AIC played the game with only three off-days after their last league game. Coach Rob Guiry said he was concerned about how his team would bounce back from Sunday's 37-7 defeat of Northestern, but the players responded.

"The men did well to focus on recovery and we were ready to go," said Guiry. "We knew UMass would bring physical forward play and we had to answer the bell. We wanted to assert our dominance in the pack and show that we were the ones in control of the contact area early. Our first 20 minutes was lights out and it was our game from there."

AIC started off well with a penalty goal from Michele Magistali in the first two minutes. Christian Adams scored the first try of the evening when Jihad Khabir budged a nicely-weighted ggrubber kick ahead for the wing to chase down. Khabir then raced in for a try of his own, and Magistali converted to make it 17-0.

AIC's momentum slowed somewhat midway through the first half when flanker Malik Walker was yellow carded. UMass powered over for a try to make it 17-5. Just before halftime, UMass suffered a yellow card, and Walker, back on the field after his ten-minute break, came up in support of Matty Jones, got the pass, and was over to make it 24-5 at the break.

In the second half, both Khabir and Adams scored tries, and with the score 38-5 after 50 minutes, the subs came on and with some changes in the AIC cohesion and another yellow card, UMass was able to score trice. AIC ended it, though, with senior hooker Jonathan Ortiz getting his first A-side try. Magistrali converted, and in fact didn't miss any kick attempts all evening, logging seven conversions and that opening penalty.

"We came into the game knowing it was going to be a tough battle with their forwards but we came out strong and played AIC Rugby," said freshman lock Tommy Clark. Added sophomore center Marcus McIntyre, "we are strong. We may bend, but we never break."

Once again Khabir and Adams were prominent with the tries, but it's an all-team effort that is seeing the Yellowjackets now 6-0 in the conference. In that streak, AIC has averaged 50 points a game, and has only give up 13 ppg.

The final conference game for AIC will be against currently-unbeaten Boston College on October 29.

"There are certainly a few things to clean up," said Guiry. "Too many dropped balls, silly passes, some decision making, but with more than two weeks to prepare for Boston College, I'm confident we can clean that up. We're getting better every week and it seems like we are peaking at the right time."