STORRS, Conn. — One teammate performed first aid while another comforted the University of Connecticut football player who was fatally stabbed during a fight outside a school dance over the weekend, their coach said yesterday.

Coach Randy Edsall wouldn’t identify the teammates or say how many players witnessed the fight that led to the death of 20-year-old Jasper Howard.

“One had Jasper in his arms and the other was pressuring where the wound went in and had blood on his hands,” Edsall said. “And those two young men are pretty deeply affected right now.”

Joanglia Howard said she got news of her son’s death at 4 a.m. Sunday.

“All I wanted him to do was go to school and get an education, and he was doing what I asked him to do,” she told WSVN-TV in Miami.

Last night, a lawyer for a Bloomfield, Conn., man said his client would be arrested in the case. Attorney Deron Freeman declined to identify the suspect, but says he and others got into a fight “with about six” UConn football players early Sunday. Freeman says his client didn’t stab Howard, but was present when he was knifed.

It would be the second arrest connected to the stabbing, which occurred hours after Howard starred in UConn’s homecoming victory over Louisville.

Johnny Hood, 21, of Hartford, was arraigned yesterday on charges of interfering with an officer and breach of peace.

UConn police Maj. Ronal Blicher said Howard was wounded during a fight between students and nonstudents that broke out after a fire alarm went off in a student center, forcing around 300 people to evacuate the dance, held by the school’s West Indian Awareness Organization.

The coach said he doesn’t know if the two teammates who helped Howard will play when the Huskies take on West Virginia Saturday.

“I will tell them if they don’t feel they are mentally ready to play, that’s their decision, and I’ll honor” it, he said.