The seventeenth-ranked Darien Blue Wave (CT) built a big second-half lead and withstood a furious rally by the home-standing Wilton Warriors (CT) to earn a 12-10 victory at Wiltons Tom Fujitani Field Thursday night.
The win moves Darien to 3-1 on the season. Wilton falls to 1-3. The rivalry game was a matchup of the past two Connecticut Class M State Champions (Darien 2012, Wilton 2011).
Darien controlled the game early, jumping out to a 3-0 advantage, with two of the markers coming from junior attackman Peter Lindley (UMass). The Blue Wave led 3-1 after one, and at halftime held a 6-3 advantage.
Darien scored three of the first four goals to start the third, building a sizable 9-4 cushion on Kyle Cornells (Bryant) first marker of the contest with just under four minutes remaining in the stanza. Things then got interesting, as Wilton closed the final minutes of the quarter with three quick goals to close the gap to 9-7 entering the fourth.
Controlling the faceoff X all game thanks to a dominant effort by senior faceoff specialist Ted Ottens (Brown), Wilton got the ball to start the fourth and shortly thereafter cut the lead to one at 9-8. Ottens abilities facing off really sparked the Warriors comeback, as they were able to keep the Blue Wave off-balance with the frantic pace. But Lindley would stop the Warriors four goal run, netting his fifth of the contest to stretch the lead back to two at 10-8.
A lengthy meeting of the officials followed an ugly scrum with about nine minutes remaining in the quarter. The results were a plethora of penalties leading to a special teams competition in addition to sky-high emotions for both teams. These were fueled further minutes later on a big Wilton hit at midfield that resulted in a penalty.
After all of the penalties and extracurriculars, Darien led 11-9. Seconds after Dariens 11th goal, however, Ottens won another faceoff and carried the ball into the box, where his shot was deflected into the goal with 6:15 remaining to cut the lead back to one at 11-10.
But again, the Blue Wave would answer as Lindley got his sixth of the game with 3:20 remaining to stretch the lead back to two, where it would remain. Darien was able to run down the final few minutes before yet another scrum in front of the Darien bench resulted in the final 10 seconds being run off the clock to make the score final.
While emotion seemed to take over judgment at times for both sides and slightly marred the action, the back-and-forth contest was one that both teams can take positives from. Wilton never wavered down six goals, and showed great heart battling back from a big deficit. For, Darien they were able to jump to a big lead and never let Wilton tie the game during the Warriors comeback effort, showing the ability to win a close game — a helpful trait come playoff time.
We will have much more on the contest in the coming days, including a great video recap and game observations. Be sure to check back!
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