Darien Crushes Newtown's Girls Lacrosse Title Chances

After rallying from behind seven different times during the first 28 minutes of Monday's state playoff game, the Newtown High School girls lacrosse team simply ran out of comebacks.

Darien senior Liz Calby scored with 12:29 remaining in the second half to break an 11-11 tie, propelling the eighth-seed, Blue Wave, to a 19-12 win over Newtown in the Division I quarterfinals.

"We hung in there tight; we definitely had them on their heels," Newtown coach Maura Fletcher said. "They had to really, really perform to beat us today."  

Newtown (19-2), which earned the top seed in the state tournament after a 15-1 regular season, entered halftime tied at 8 against Darien, and then took three separate one-goal leads during the second half.

Each time, however, those leads quickly evaporated.

The Nighthawks jumped ahead 11-10 with 17:39 left in the game on a goal by Erin Brown, but Calby responded with two of her game-high eight goals to give Darien the lead for good.

"She's a senior obviously and very composed in this situation," Darien coach Lisa Lindley said of Calby. "It's a good person to have the ball in the hands of."

All but two of Calby's tallies either tied the game or put her team ahead by one on the scoreboard.

"To lose to a team like Darien, I don't feel is something to frown upon. I might feel that way if we lost to a lesser team, but Darien is the number one team in the state," Fletcher said. "I don't look at this negative at all."

Darien is ranked No. 1, according to LaxPower rankings. By comparison, Newtown is currently ranked fifth in the poll, just 2.09 percentage points behind Darien.

After Darien's lead was trimmed to 13-12 with over seven minutes remaining, it reeled off six straight goals to crush Newtown's hopes and at the same time, keep its quest for four consecutive Division I championships afloat.

Midfielder Cali Ceglarski recorded five goals and one assist for Darien, while Ellie Bullit scored twice in the win. 

The Blue Wave has now won back-to-back games since its heartbreaking triple overtime loss to Wilton in the semifinals of the Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference tournament. The loss motivated the team, Lindley said.

"People realized that their job isn't secure, and that they've got to work hard each and every day at practice," she said.

Darien (15-4) will face FCIAC foe Greenwich (15-3) -- which defeated Guilford 18-8 -- in the semifinals on Wednesday. It will be a rematch from April 20, which Darien won 15-13.

While Newtown never led in the first half, its deficit never stretched past two goals. After Darien's Ann Fucigna scored with 12:47 remaining in the half to extend the lead to 7-5, Newtown attack Lisa Vendel provided her team with the spark it needed.

Vendel, who tallied a team-high 68 goals during the regular season, scored three times before the half to knot the score at 8. She then provided Newtown with its first lead of the day (9-8) just 2:23 into the second half, when she added her fourth and final goal.

"I said to the girls before the game, 'if you lay it all on the line, if you play your hearts out, I don't care what the score is,'" Fletcher said. "I really feel like they left winners today."

Meghan Bridges and Kaitlin Brophy each scored twice on the afternoon.

"It was still really close throughout the whole entire game. We were just getting tired," Vendel said. "We were still solid on offense, still solid on defense, it was just the little things that (we) were letting get through."

Lindley said that in the second half, Darien switched from a zone defense to a man-to-man defense, which neutralized Newtown's powerful attack.

Newtown's four goals in the final half came within a 15-minute span.