NEW CANAAN, Conn. - Darien High School has been the hot spot for Connecticut lacrosse for the better part of the past decade, but with all due respect to the Blue Wave, the state’s oldest and most important rivalry belongs to New Canaan and Wilton.
The series dates back to the early 1970s, when the Wilton Warriors and head coach Guy Whitten first knocked heads with the New Canaan Rams and their head coach, Howard Benedict. The teams met for the FCIAC and state championships on a consistent basis — so much so that in the two towns, the state final was jokingly referred to as the Wilton-New Canaan Invitational.
Darien led a group of rising stars in the 1990s and now, the Warriors and Rams are just two of many contenders in a league which also includes consistently strong teams from Ridgefield, Greenwich and Brien McMahon.
Wilton and New Canaan added another chapter to the rivalry’s history with a girls and boys doubleheader at New Canaan’s Dunning Field on May 1.
New Canaan (white jerseys) and Wilton battle it out May 1.
Photo By Gretchen McMahon
The names have changed — former Warrior Alex Whitten now leads New Canaan, and John Wiseman, another past Wilton star, is in his first year as the head coach of the Warriors.
Wilton got the better of New Canaan in both games, as the Warrior girls won 15-13, and the boys rallied with four straight goals in the fourth quarter and beat the Rams, 6-4, before a packed stadium under the lights.
For Wilton senior goalie James Fuller, the game made for a night to remember.
“It was unbelievable,” Fuller said. “This is a huge rivalry and it’s only once in a lifetime you get to play under the lights in New Canaan in a doubleheader. This is just one of the best experiences, I’ll never forget it.”
“I’m a Duke guy and this is kind of like Duke-Carolina,” Wiseman said. “It’s a viscous, intense rivalry, but it’s on the field and that’s where it stops. The Duke and Carolina players all have a lot of respect and I think it is the same with New Canaan and Wilton. We have a lot of respect for each other. Certainly these coaches help with that but even way back when, the teams always had respect for each other.”
The idea of a doubleheader centered on the rivalry was a natural fit for the two schools. Both New Canaan teams are coached by former Wilton players — Kristin Wood with the girls and Whitten with the boys,
“These are the things we want to do here,” Whitten said. “Kristin Wood and I get along really well and we both thought it would be really cool to do this and next year we’re going to do the same thing in Wilton. It’s creating an event around these types of lacrosse games. It’s like the football games, they’re big events. This place was packed tonight, it was a great crowd, it was fun to see and a great atmosphere to play in.”
“The notion of a doubleheader was certainly an obvious one because of the New Canaan-Wilton rivalry,” Wiseman said. “And we also had four Wilton coaches here with all the representative teams, which was special. It’s a tight rivalry.”
The Rams (6-5 overall, 6-2 FCIAC) didn’t trail the Warriors (9-2, 8-1) until the fourth quarter, but were unable to capitalize on their offensive opportunities, leaving Wilton within striking distance. New Canaan led 1-0 in the first quarter, 2-1 at halftime and 3-2 after three quarters before Wilton went on a run of four unanswered goals in the fourth frame.
Wilton senior midfielder Kyle Sullivan tied the game at 3-3 off a feed from sophomore attack Mike Francia 2:34 into the fourth quarter, and junior attack Jack Krueger gave Wilton its first lead 1:05 later. Senior midfielder Vinnie Cannon and Francia added two more goals as the Warriors went up 6-3 with 2:53 remaining.
New Canaan junior middie Cody Newton broke the slide when he ripped a shot home from 10 yards out with 1:26 to play, but the Rams were unable to get any closer.
“I thought we out-played Wilton in the first three quarters,” Whitten said. “In every facet of the game, I thought we were playing harder than them and doing a lot of stuff. But our lack of scoring didn’t allow us to establish any kind of tempo. James Fuller is a very good goalie and we said it earlier this week that you can’t just throw the ball at the net, you’ve got to hit your target, and we just didn’t do it.”
Wiseman said the Warriors answered the bell when the game was on the line.
“It sounds trite, but it was possession and poise,” Wiseman said. “There was a lot of intensity and a lot of emotion out here on both sides and that’s great. But in the end, you’ve got to control that and have the poise and wherewithal to put that in the back of the can and ultimately they did that.”
The Wilton D played a standout game, led by Fuller, who collected 13 saves and stymied the struggling New Canaan attack.
Long poles Kevin Simon and Joe Lasala, both seniors, and Scott Thompson and Gavin Woolard, both juniors, were also outstanding and gave their Warriors a chance to take over the game in the fourth quarter.
“We focused on our slides, we had a good scout on them and we were just really well prepared for this game,” Fuller said. “We knew there was nothing they could do to take it away from us.”
The Rams, meanwhile, wasted another gritty performance by the New Canaan defense, which was led by long poles Kevin Campbell, Ian Knechtle, James Cody and Bobby Femia, all juniors, and sophomore goalie Jimmy Joe Granito, who collected 14 saves.
“Our defense played very, very well,” Whitten said. “This was a big defensive game — you’ve got two really good goalies and two good defenses. But our inability to score killed us. When our defense holds a team like that to six points, we have to muster up more than four points.”
New Canaan actually scored the game’s first goal relatively quickly, when sophomore midfielder Joe Costigan rocked a shot between Fuller and the left post 1:35 after the opening faceoff.
Wilton tied the game at 8:04 when Cannon scored off an assist from senior Peter McMahon.
The Warriors missed a chance to take the lead early in the second when Cannon hit the post and Granito made a big save on a rebound attempt.
Fuller was equally impressive at the other end, but New Canaan freshman Connor Humphrey beat the Wilton goalie for a tally with 2:17 remaining in the half.
The Rams gave up the lead early in the third when Francia made a quick move around the left side of the goal and slipped an underhand shot past Granito for the score.
Ram sophomore Henry Eschricht responded with a goal at the other end, giving New Canaan a 3-2 lead heading into the fourth frame.
After Sullivan tied the game with 9:26 remaining, Wilton took its first lead on a broken play. Costigan knocked down a Wilton pass near the Rams’ net, but the loose ball ended up with Krueger, who took a quick shot and scored high for a 4-3 lead.
Wilton scored two more goals during the next six minutes and went on to win.
“This game exposes things we need to work on — shooting is one of them and playing with composure,” Whitten said. “I don’t think we played with very much composure at all today and it really, really hurt us. We’ll watch the film of this game, we’re going to critique it and we’re going to be brutally honest. That’s all we can do because we have to take an experience like this and get better because of it.”
Wilton’s victory over New Canaan is part of a six-game winning streak for the Warriors, who have since beaten Greenwich 10-5, Trinity Catholic 23-0, and Horace Greeley 16-5. Wilton stands at 9-2 overall and 8-1 in the FCIAC. The Warriors two losses were to Darien, 8-4 on April 22, and to Ridgefield, 15-4 in a non-conference contest on April 11.
They will finish the season with three tough games, with home games against St. Anthony’s (10-2) on May 16, Yorktown (12-1) on May 19, and at Brien McMahon (6-5) on May 22, and as always with New Canaan and Wilton, the sky is the limit once the postseason begins.
“I think we can go a long way,” Fuller said. “We have the players but we need to want it. The coaches know what it’s going to take for us to get there and it’s just a matter of if the players want it enough. There are a ton of great teams in the FCIAC. This game with New Canaan could have gone either way, Ridgefield is unbelievable this year, Darien is unbelievable. It’s going to take a lot of hard work. We can celebrate this game now, but tomorrow, it’s back to work.
“We have a long stretch ahead of us and we need to finish it.”
Dave Stewart, the Sports Editor of the New Canaan (Conn.) Advertiser, is a MaxPreps.com writer and photographer. He may be reached at 203-966-9541 or at sports@ncadvertiser.com
