May 8, 2008
Victory a long time coming
GHS boys lacrosse upends Blue Wave for first time since 1988
|
To say it’s been a long time since the Greenwich High boys lacrosse team came out victorious against Darien is an understatement. In fact, senior midfielder Ryan Benincasa said it best after Big Red’s victory over the Blue Wave Saturday afternoon.
“This is unbelievable,” Benincasa said. “Coach Burke reminded us that no one on this team was alive when Greenwich beat Darien, so this was really big. It shows how this program has grown into the power it is now. A few years ago we didn’t even make the playoffs.”
On a cold, windy day at Darien High School, a confident Greenwich lacrosse team stepped onto the field and upended the top team in the state of Connecticut and the 11th best in the nation 8-7 for the first time since 1988.
“This is awesome,” goalie Kyle Feeney said. “We haven’t beaten Darien in a long time, so this feels amazing. We played really well on all sides of the ball and it was a huge momentum boost for us.”
For senior co-captain Jonathan Meyers, beating Darien has been on his list of priorities ever since he entered Greenwich High School.
“Before this, we haven’t had a win against them,” Meyers said. “We came close a bunch of times, but never won. As one of the captains, you can’t explain how great of a feeling this is to finally get a win against these guys. The last five minutes were crazy, but that’s what good lacrosse is all about. You watch those good games on TV and they are always close at the end. It’s about who wants it more. We proved that today. ”
With GHS taking a slim 5-4 lead heading into the second half, Greenwich did what some thought was unthinkable. For the final 24 minutes of the game, Big Red’s stifling defense held the high-flying Darien offense to three goals.
“This was pretty nice,” Burke said. “We came ready to play right from the beginning and really did a great job coming out. I am really proud of our defense guys and the job they did.”
Leading the way was goalie Kyle Feeney, who made 13 saves for the Cardinals and came up huge on several point-blank opportunities. While Feeney was stellar between the pipes, he almost was a last minute scratch from one of the biggest games of his career.
“Kyle wasn’t here at 1:30 p.m. because he was taking SATs and I was a little worried about what was going on,” Burke said. “Ward Waesche is a good goalie and we got him ready to go, but Kyle came. Maybe that’s what he wants. Three minutes to get started was fine for him.”
“It was an important game for me,” Feeney said. “I got in kind of late because of the SATs, so I had only three minutes to get ready, but I was good to go. I played the best game so far this year and the defense was very good today. I made a couple of mistakes on the clears, but the defense was right there to save me.”
Greenwich started the second half on fire. With 10:19 to play in the third quarter, senior midfielder Sean Sutton worked the ball around the back of the net, came to the top of the crease and blasted a shot for the 6-4 lead. Darien wouldn’t back down and scored with 9:36 left in the third; however, Greenwich came roaring back. Off a faceoff victory from Benincasa, Colin Dunster got possession of the ball, sprinted downfield and put the ball in the back of the net for the 7-5 lead with 9:23 to play.
Benincasa, who started that play with the faceoff win, was dominant throughout the game, winning 11 of the 18 faceoffs. In fact, with the score knotted 4-4 after Darien scored with 13.2 seconds to play in the opening half, Benincasa won the ensuing faceoff, darted downfield and gave Big Red its 5-4 lead with 2.2 seconds showing on the clock.
“Ryan obviously is a great spark for us,” Burke said. “He really got us going when our offense was stagnant in the first half. He was able to turn the ball around from a faceoff to a goal like he did today, that’s fantastic. You can’t say enough about him. There’s a reason why he’s going to Virginia. He can turn games around in a few seconds.”
Dunster, who scored Greenwich’s seventh goal, came back with 1:34 to play in the third quarter and scored a goal at point-blank range to extend the lead to 8-5.
Darien came charging back in the final frame, as it scored twice in 1:22 to make the score 8-7. However, that’s when the Greenwich defense, led by Meyers came up huge. The Blue Wave were unable to find any good looks at the net and there was constant pressure on the Darien attack the rest of the way.
A key moment was with 4:42 to play in the game, as Greenwich was called for a one-minute slashing penalty. Playing man-down, the defense of Meyers, Feeney, Bob Sullivan, Brian Milazzo and Tyler Gwozdz was able to stop the Blue Wave from knotting the game.
“We proved today what our defense is capable of,” Meyers said. “We haven’t done that before today. To come out against the best competition and do what we did today couldn’t make me any prouder. We knew we had to step up and it’s a product of a lot of hard work we do in games and in practice.”
Defense was also the key in the first quarter, as Darien’s Mike Ryan scored the lone goal, beating Feeney to his left, with 2:42 to play in the quarter. Greenwich knotted to start the second quarter. After another faceoff victory by Benincasa, he passed the ball to senior co-captain Jim Dunster. Dunster then found Jared Horowitz in front of the Darien net for the 1-1 tie. That seemed to be the theme of the afternoon.
After Darien’s Nikki Dysenchuk found the back of the net, Greenwich again tied the game as Benincasa won yet another faceoff and fed senior Tucker Stafford for the 2-2 tie with 7:44 to play in the half.
Greenwich took the lead immediately after. On the ensuing faceoff, Benincasa won again, but this time took the ball to the net for the goal and 3-2 lead.
Big Red finished the game with a 31-27 advantage in shots on goal and a 48-39 advantage in groundballs.
“The challenge now is coming off a big win from Prep. We thought we could cruise through things and not show up,” Burke said. “The challenge for us was to get them emotionally ready to play every game. We have to do the same thing now because even more teams are going to want to jump on us and take something from us. We have the talent to beat just about anybody, but we need to show up and play and Ridgefield showed us that earlier this year."
With the victory, Greenwich improved to 10-1 on the season and avenged the recent 13-10 loss to Ridgefield earlier in the season.
“We certainly didn’t play our best against Ridgefield, and McMahon showed us a lot of speed and intensity that we haven’t seen before either,” Burke said. “Wilton was a nice wake-up call and we got going and played well. We knew today that Darien was going to be fast and a talented team, so we needed to put it all together. I don’t think we played a perfect game; however, we put the effort that we were able to get the job done.”
The road doesn’t get any easier. Tonight at 7, the Cards host cross-town rival Brunswick, a game that has no effect on the FCIAC or state tournament standings, but still is a game that the athletes circle on the calendar each year.
“It’s the kids’ game,” Burke said. “The kids know all the players on the Brunswick team and they are a great team. They play some great competition. There’s a reason why they are .500. They are playing against future college stars. To think that they are not a good team because they are .500 is crazy.”
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
|
