The Massachusetts men’s club rugby team won its home opener against UConn 55-10 to start the season with back–to–back wins. The Minutemen (2-0) exploded in the second half, outscoring the Huskies (0-2) 33-0 in the final 40 minutes of play.
The first half was more of an even affair, with UConn bringing the energy and physicality. However, the Huskies wore out as the game progressed, making multiple mistakes while receiving John McGoey’s punts, which gave the Minutemen great opportunities to score.
“I thought it was a really tough start, I thought UConn came to play,” head coach Philip Ciccarelli said. “That was a tough test. But I thought the boys rose to the challenge. They took the aggression from UConn, turned it around, put it back at them and played a really good, clinical game.”
With the departure of former UMass captain Arthur Dehareng, the Minutemen had to fill the No. 8 position, and they did so with senior Colin Moriarty, who scored twice last weekend against Niagara. He followed that up with two more tries versus UConn, both in the second half.
“I thought [Moriarty] had a fantastic game today … He stepped into that role really well,” Ciccarelli said. “I thought he ran his eight picks. He controlled the lineout. He captained the forwards. I thought he did a great job.”
Two UMass backs stood out in the game: fly-half McGoey and fullback Nate Schaeffner, in his first career start for the Minutemen. The duo combined for the team’s eighth try of the game after McGoey kicked a low driven ball past the Huskies’ defender. Schaeffner ran past him, picked the ball up and ran the final 10 feet to put the ball down for a try. Schaeffner also scored in the first half when Rahul Patel played the ball to him on the touchline, and he aggressively cut inside, blowing by two would-be tacklers to score.
“Yeah, [Schaeffner] was great, he’s had a great run the last two weekends,” Ciccarelli said. “So yeah, we’re happy to have him on the panel.”
In the later stages of the first half, UConn was building up some pressure with one of its backs one–on–one with just McGoey back defensively and the captain made a huge play, punching the ball out and preventing the try. Defense was a strength of the team last season, and will seemingly remain a strength this season, giving up just 15 points in the opening contest.
“I mean, defensively, [we gave up] 10 points,” Ciccarelli said.“That’s not bad, you know. That’s 15 points in two weeks. If we keep that streak going, I think we’re going to have a good season.”
Another strength of the team last season was in the scrum, winning possession of the ball even when it wasn’t theirs. However, in the first half of this game, UConn had the advantage, getting the push in almost every scrum. Things flipped in the second half with some substitutions up front, allowing UMass to keep possession of all its scums and scoring twice coming out of the scrums.
“That’s been something that we really want to focus on,” Ciccarelli said. “So we’ve dug really deep into that, we work hard on it, and the guys really, really showed it today.”
UMass plays again at home next weekend, on Saturday, Sept. 27 against Northeastern, at the fields behind McGuirk Alumni Stadium.
Myles Donato can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X @myles_donato.
