Football Season Update: FCIACs in Sight

-By: Darius Majd-

As the Darien High School football team’s undefeated season continues, many are undoubtedly beginning to recall the unbeaten run in 2008, which ended in a heartbreaking Turkey Bowl showdown with heated rival New Canaan. If the Rams’ 28-27 loss to St. Joe’s took a bit of the luster off of this year’s match up, their 43-7 blowout victory over Wilton reaffirmed many fans’ belief that this year’s Turkey Bowl will live up to the excitement of that 28-20 thriller, as well as the 14-7 defeat a year ago.

But despite all of the parallels to the 2008 season, and the FCIAC Championship that was decided on Thanksgiving that year, this season’s meeting is different: it will have no bearing on Darien’s FCIAC title hopes. This is because the 2010 FCIAC Football Championship will be played in Trumbull on Nov.19. This is six days before the game against New Canaan, who was eliminated from FCIAC contention with the loss to St. Joe’s. And 2008 was an aberration, as the two rivals were slated to meet in FCIACs well in advance, prompting officials to make the upcoming Thanksgiving game the championship.

Darien has two more games before then, against Westhill and Norwalk, and if they win those two they are guaranteed a spot in the finals, a match up against either Trumbull or Staples (most likely decided in a head-to-head clash on Nov.13). With the New Canaan game out of the FCIAC picture, Darien’s chances of reaching the game have significantly increased; Westhill has been beaten convincingly in its last six games after opening the season with a win over currently winless Harding, and Norwalk is 3-4, following up a season-opening upset of powerhouse Greenwich with some ugly losses to top-tier FCIAC opponents. Still, Darien senior captain Charlie Kunze says the team needs to stay grounded and stay at the top of its game: “We need to stay focused and make sure that we don’t make mistakes, and get better in these two weeks against Westhill and Norwalk.”

The Blue Wave Football team continues in its quest for perfection against Westhill at 2pm this Saturday (11/6) at Westhill High School. Then Nov 13 is the final game towards FCIAC qualification at home at 1:30pm against Norwalk.

Photo: Senior captain Charlie Kunze and the rest of the Darien defense have terrorized opposing offenses all season long.