Wave Baseball Falls in Quarters, Completes Successful Season

by Stephen Barston

On Friday, June 6th, the Darien High School Baseball team fell to Jonathan Law High School in the Class L State Quarterfinals. Following solid, all-around performances in the first two rounds of the tournament, the Blue Wave was stifled by senior Kevin Johnson, the Lawmen's starting pitcher, who completed the game with 10 strikeouts.

Starting on the mound for the Blue Wave was junior Conor Davey, who pitched 3 2/3 solid innings, allowing two runs, with only one of them earned. He was relieved by two seniors, Luke Mangan and Brendan Donohue, who kept Darien within striking distance. However, the story of the game was the Wave's inability to hit Johnson. When Blue Wave players got on base, like junior Craig Miller did three times, Johnson would buckle down and prevent Darien from stringing together a rally. Ultimately, he was too much to handle for DHS, and the end result was a 3-0 loss for the Wave.

"We just could not catch up to his fastball," Darien coach Mike Scott said of Johnson. "He worked quick and we were not able to adjust. I am surprised at that because we are typically a fastball hitting team. You have to tip your cap to him."

Although the season ended earlier than many of the DHS players expected, the 2014 campaign was a successful one . The Blue Wave finished 17-7 overall, and qualified for FCIACs for the first time since 1997. Coach Mike Scott won FCIAC Coach of the Year, and Donohue was voted to the All-FCIAC First Team. Congratulations to the entire team, and good luck to the seniors moving on to college.

The Wave infield discusses strategy during Friday's game.

A Lax Season That Will Never Be Forgotten

By Anthony DiMeglio

21 down, 2 to go.  The Darien Blue Wave Lacrosse team, ranked No. 1 in the State, and No. 4 in the nation, is only 2 games away from winning the State title and sealing a perfect season. 

This season, there have been many memorable moments that will surely never be forgotten.  Coach Jeff Brameier received his 500^th career win with the Darien Lacrosse program, and the team had two overtime victories against rivals New Canaan, one of which gave the Blue Wave an FCIAC championship. 

However, with all of this accomplished, the Blue Wave are not going to be satisfied with a 21-1 record, so the pressure is still on.  In order to fulfill their goal of a perfect season, the Wave will continue to improve to bring back the hardwood to Darien and the DHS trophy case.

Outscoring their opponents 40-7 in the first two rounds of the CIAC tournament, the Wave will continue to beat up on their challengers in order to complete something that has only been done once or twice in the history of the program: a perfect season.

Junior Ian Burgoyne celebrates his game-winning shot
with senior Harry Gillespie in the FCIAC Semifinals.

By The Numbers: DHS Lax Through 20 Games

by Britton Barthold

The Darien Boys Lacrosse team has moved on to an unheard-of record of 20-0 after an offensive onslaught of Stratford in the first round of the Class M state playoffs. After this assault on the poor Red Devils, I decided to take a look at the most impressive numbers from the current 20-0 standpoint.

4: The Blue Wave’s current ranking in the Under Armour/Inside Lacrosse National Rankings.

274: The amount of goals the Blue Wave offense has scored through 20 games… that’s almost 14 goals a game.

4.3: The average amount of goals senior Phil Huffard has allowed per game through 20 games.

188: The differential between goals scored and goals allowed by the Blue Wave through 20 games.

DHS celebrates its FCIAC title.

Wave Rugby Beats Amity

by Maeve Cutts

On Saturday, May 21^st, the Darien High School Varsity Rugby team played a game against Amity High School at Royle Elementary School at 12 pm. The team was missing a lot of varsity players due to multiple injuries, but some of the underclassmen stepped up their game. Senior James Foster said, “Younger kids like [sophomore] Jack Thacher stepped up big time to help our team beat Amity for a second time this year.” This was the team’s last game of the season, but seniors James Foster, Zach Basu, and Tyler Hill all scored, giving a memorable last high school rugby game and making the final score of the game was 43-26. Congrats to the rugby team on a successful season.

Junior James Fox in action during a game from earlier in the regular season.

Boys Lax Wins FCIAC Championship

by Colin Flynn

The number one seeded Blue Wave Boys Lacrosse team demolished Greenwich by a score of 11-6 last Friday night at Brien McMahon High School to claim their 13^th FCIAC Championship.  The start was emphatic as Darien scored the opening 6 goals of the game.  Darien was led by the MVP of the game, senior Peter Lindley, who tallied a total of 4 goals and an assist, while John Reed (senior), Harry Gillespie (senior), Ian Burgoyne (junior), Jack Kniffin (sophomore), and Colin Minicus (sophomore) all got on the score sheet as well.  Leading the defense was the Yale-bound senior goalie Phil Huffard, who had 12 saves, and helping him was sophomore Mark Evanchick and senior Sam Meyjes.  Check out Boys Lax as they look to finish the season undefeated in the state playoffs Wednesday at the stadium.

Coach Brameier gets an ice bath as the team celebrates winning the FCIAC championship.