Lady Warriors and Blue Wave Dig Pink

The weather inside Darien High School's gymnasium was wild Friday night, with volleyballs raining down and a pink warmup shirt cyclone swirling about.

As part of the "Dig Pink" event, the Darien and Wilton volleyball teams held fundraisers, drenched themselves and the facility in fuschia-tinted clothing and ribbons, and played a spirited set of matches to a packed house. The evening was all part of the Side-Out Foundation's October-long, nationwide initiative to raise $700,000 and public awareness of the threat of breast cancer.

"The event went off really well," said Wilton coach Heather Schlitz. "The cause is so important to us all and this event was not just about volleyball or our small communities, it was about something so much bigger."

The energy around the gym was palpable, felt in the idiosyncratic cheers, stomps, and intricate handshakes of the players, but also in the several hundred fans' booming applause. During every timeout or side change, a Darien announcer interjected breast cancer awareness facts and thanked the crowd and the teams for all their support.

"It's great to have the freshman, JV, and varsity teams all play in one night and get together for a cause that's so important," said Darien senior tri-captain Colby Billhardt.

The varsity match, itself, was not so even. During the first game, Darien pulled out to a quick 5-1 lead. Wilton was able to pull back within three on strong serving by sophomore Amanda Stanzione, but this is as close as Wilton would get. Darien took ten straight points to win the game 25-6 on Billhardt's booming serves.

Timely and accurate striking, and a series of good service points from Darien senior tri-captain Sarah Gorski put Darien up 10-4 and they never looked back. Every time Wilton would mount a charge, Darien seemed poised and recovered, setting and spiking home defining points to win the second game 25-8.

Wilton's play was much stronger in the third game with Stanzione serving well, senior Stephanie Boyles notching kills, and junior Lindsay Waack coming up with some hard-fought digs. But, in the end, Darien was able to hold off the charge and take the game (and thus the match) 25-11.

"Everything came together well," Gorski said afterward. "We worked really hard for this and it's great to see the community come out and support us."

"We tried to bring it the best we could and Wilton put up a tough fight," said Darien junior tri-captain Corinne Sommi.

Despite the lopsided victory, both teams and coaches were proud to support the "Dig Pink" cause and made great strides toward their goals. Darien resident Deb Suckow said she thought the evening would push the town's squad in excess of their $5,000 fundraising aspiration and Wilton's team had similar success.

"It's always exciting to go against Darien," Schlitz said. "We came into this looking to have fun and get hit and served at in ways we haven't seen before. We'll use this as a learning experience and it was great to play against such a good team."