Ruden Sports News

Earlier this season, the five senior members of the Darien volleyball team saw their 60-match winning streak come to an end at the hands of Greenwich.

The Blue Wave was not about to watch its run of conference titles come to an end as well.

The second-seeded Blue Wave won its third straight FCIAC championship tonight at Stamford High’s Kuczo Gym, coming out on fire early and posting a hard-fought 3-1 win over the Cardinals to take the title.

Darien won the match, 25-19, 16-25, 25-23, 25-22.

“I think that there was a lot of pressure, obviously, going through this season,” said first-year Darien coach Carson Mafrice, whose team had been riddled buy injuries and was blanked by Greenwich 3-0 back on Oct. 7. “I think losing to them in the regular season really gave them some extra motivation. These seniors have been a part of this big dynasty now for their entire four years of high school and all five of them wanted this with their whole hearts. They wanted to continue that dynasty.”

Tied at 1-1 after two sets, Darien took the third set by winning the final four points.

Trailing 23-21, Katelyn Erdlen had a kill, the Cardinals had a bad set and Erdlen joined Corinne Easterbrook and tournament MVP Savannah Leone, the Blue Wave’s setter, in recording point-winning blocks to clinch the set.

With the score tied early in the fourth game, Darien’s freshman libero Marlene Davis came through with six straight service points, including two aces, as the Blue Wave built a 9-3 lead.

“I think it was really important to come out strong in that (fourth) game,” Davis said. “I was just trying to keep the game going. I didn’t want to try anything too fancy because obviously it’s a really important time and I think I was just trying my best to just be consistent and not try to go for anything too fancy.”

“She’s an amazing player,” Mafrice said of Davis. “We’re really lucky to have her as a freshman. She has a fantastic attitude. Really hard worker, really intelligent girl. So we’re really happy to have her on the team. She always gets the job done when you need her to.”

The Blue Wave held on to that six-point edge up until the score was 13-7. Greenwich — sparked by the play of Kayah Armstong (a kill and an ace in the first three points of the run)— went on an 8-1 tear to take a 15-14 lead.

From there, the two teams has four lead changes and seven ties.

An Armstrong kill actually gave the Cardinals a 22-21 lead, forcing Mafrice to call her final timeout of the set.

An Erdlen kill, coupled with two big Greenwich mistakes, set up championship point.

Erdlen served and once Greenwich got the ball back over the net, Marin Black slammed down one last kill to clinch the title as Darien improved to 20-2.

“After the loss to Greenwich, it was kind of a wakeup call for me because they’re a really good team, but I just knew I had to play better than I had been playing,” Black said. “In practice, I just kept working on swinging hard and not just playing scared. I just wanted to be more aggressive, which I tried to do today.”

Black had 11 kills and eight blocks to lead the Darien effort. Five of those kills came in the first set as Darien established itself as a vastly different team than the one that fell to the Cardinals earlier.

“I think after that loss against Greenwich, we were really worried about, are we going to be able to want it enough to come into the semifinals and the finals and be confident with ourselves?” Black said. “ We were really focused on working as a unit rather than just singular players, and we were focused on just making sure that everyone was confident with what they were doing. There wasn’t just a star player, that we could all trust each other, which I think was a really big thing for us.”

Brooke Leone 11 kills and seven digs while Erdlen added 7 kills. Savannah Leone had 31 assists and 19 digs while Davis had nine digs.

“They wanted to end what they started,” Mafrice said. “And so they were going to do that no matter what. That’s their mindset.”

After dropping the first game, Greenwich responded with a huge effort in game two.

The Cardinals won the first seven points of the set to take a 7-0 lead and later built that advantage up to 10-1 and 12-2.

Darien got to within five points (19-14), but the Cardinals were able to close out the game as Heidi Zieme came up with two big kills down the stretch.

Greenwich simply couldn’t find the consistent play that allowed the Cardinals to win 20 matches this season, against what is now two losses.

“I don’t know. I mean, we were just making really bad errors at the wrong time and couldn’t really figure out why,” Greenwich coach Marianna Linnehan said. “We would get moments of greatness for a while and then we’d make a dumb mistake, so it was just hard for us to just keep that momentum going. It’s hard. It’s just mental errors — like, oh, I messed up once, so I don’t want to mess up again, or I get blocked and I don’t want to get blocked again. That’s what it felt like.”

 It was a balanced attack at the front for Greenwich as Armstrong (11), Zieme (10) and Alina Sarkissian (9) combined for 30 kills.

The Cardinals just made too many errors.

“They came in ready and wanting it,” Linnehan said. “Honestly, I just think it was just our really bad mistakes that were made at the wrong time.”

The two teams could meet again in the Class LL semifinals.

Greenwich is the second seed while Darien is seeded third.

The Cardinals will face the winner of Westhill and Norwich Free Academy in the second round while the Blue Wave will host the winner of Ridgefield and Newington.

Those second-round games will be played on Friday, Nov. 7.