CIAC BOYS LACROSSE PREVIEW
STORYLINES
Here’s what to know for the 2023 CIAC boys lacrosse season:
MATHEMATICS
After years of griping, there’s a new seeding formula for the CIAC tournament, no longer based only on winning percentage. While it’ll still take a .400 record – seven wins for teams playing 16 games, six for teams playing 15 – to get in, teams will be seeded by LaxNumbers’ rankings. Those figures take into account teams’ margins of victory and strength of schedule and, at least to the eye test, do a pretty good job of evaluating teams’ relative strength.
IN BALANCE
After years of griping, the FCIAC has remade its schedule, breaking into two tiers. The reigning powers and larger schools are in the top tier. The smaller schools and less powerful are in the second tier. The change hopefully cuts down on some of the no-contest games that do little for either side, giving the big boys a couple of extra slots for non-league or out-of-state games. New Canaan may have the coolest, closing the regular season at Penn State against defending Ohio champion Upper Arlington.
CLASS, DISMISSED
After years of griping, we have days of divisions.
With New Canaan and Wilton often on the edge of Classes L and M, sometimes there were tweaks to get one or the other into Class L, and sometimes, like last year when Wilton was left in Class M, there were not.
Both would have been Class M teams this season, but a new rule allows teams to opt their way into Class L for two years at a time. Both Wilton, last year’s Class M champion, and New Canaan have opted up.
Classes M and S are hardly devoid of good teams. Cheshire and Hand are ranked in the GameTimeCT Top 10 Poll. Finalist Notre Dame-West Haven is always solid. St. Joseph, thanks to a first-round loss to Hand last spring, is no longer triggered up one class by the CIAC’s success factor and is back in Class S, where it has been a power for the better part of two decades.
Defending Class S champ Weston remains there. New Fairfield, after playing in the de facto Class S championship game in 2021, had an off year last season but never really goes away.
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REVENGE TOURS
Since 2005, the last year of two divisions before the CIAC tournament went to three classes, last year was just the second (2013) in which the list of champions included neither Darien nor Ridgefield. One of those programs ticked off is usually enough to handle. Good luck with both.
SOMEWHAT TALENTED
Connecticut had 16 All-America players last season, and four of them return. There’s Ridgefield junior Kyle Colsey, a two-year standout already; there’s Fairfield Prep midfielder Marco Firmender, a senior headed for Penn; and there’s Cheshire’s dynamic duo of senior attackman Charles Kurtz and junior middie Matt Jeffery, who was NLF Insider’s top recruit in the Class of 2024. He’s committed to Notre Dame. Meanwhile, while a lot of the big names are in the FCIAC and SCC, there are college-bound players throughout the state.
GAMES TO WATCH
With the concentration of top teams, there are nearconstant top-10 matchups through the season, so just for space purposes we’ll have to leave out many.
No. 1 Darien at No. 2 Fairfield Prep, April 1, 7:30 p.m.: The state’s great power of the past 30 years against a team whose young players are grown up. They are separated by one point in our preseason poll.
Brunswick at Darien, April 6, 6:30 p.m.: The No. 1 team in the national rankings visits the No. 1 team in our state rankings (which don’t include non-CIAC schools). They’ve played every season since 2019, and Brunswick is 3-0, though the game went to overtime in 2021 and the Bruins held off a furious Darien comeback last year.
No. 7 Cheshire at Notre Dame-West Haven (Veterans Stadium), April 11, 6 p.m.: Cheshire and No. 9 Hand are in the top 10 (they play May 1, Surf Club in Madison), but Notre Dame was the team in the Class M final last year. (See the whole thing above about seeding, but – the final.) The Green Knights get an early measuring stick against the presumptive Class M favorite.
Darien at No. 3 Staples, April 15, 5 p.m.: Staples’ first game against a Connecticut top-10 team this season is the rematch of the state championship. No big deal or anything.
No. 5 Ridgefield at No. 6 New Canaan, April 15, 5:30 p.m.: The teams played a one-goal game in the Class L quarterfinals last year, a Tigers win.
St. Joseph at Weston, April 29, noon: This starts a four-game run in which the Trojans will face possibly the biggest threat to its Class S reign, the team (New Fairfield) that had dominated the SWC for years, and the team (at New Milford, May 11, 7 p.m.) it defeated for last year’s SWC championship. Weston beat the Cadets 17-9 early last season.
No. 6 New Canaan at No. 1 Darien, April 29, 1 p.m.: You’re not leaving a Darien-New Canaan game out of any list of games to watch, are you? Especially when they’re top-10 teams.
No. 10 Fairfield Ludlowe at No. 9 Hand (Surf Club), April 29, 1 p.m.: Hand actually plays both teams tied for 10th in the poll within a week and a half, welcoming in Glastonbury on May 8 at 7:30 p.m.
No. 4 Wilton at No. 1Darien, May 4, 4:30 p.m.: Did the FCIAC and SCC get together and say, “Let’s play the rematches of our 2022 finals on May 4”...
No. 2 Fairfield Prep at No. 7 Cheshire, May 4, 6 p.m.: ...because they’re both on this Thursday. Fun coincidence. Presumably . ...
New Canaan at Wilton, May 11, 7 p.m.: With New Canaan celebrating 50 years of lacrosse this season, feels appropriate to put the Wilton game in here.
Ridgefield at Staples, May 13, 3 p.m.: We’ll wait this long for a rematch of the Wreckers’ 9-8 overtime win in last year’s Class L semifinals.
New York/Connecticut power at Connecticut/New York power, next five weeks:
Hard to narrow these down. Darien and Ridgefield both visit Manhasset (ninth in the USA Lacrosse national rankings, 18th in Inside Lacrosse) this month, April 8 for the Blue Wave, April 21 for the Tigers. Darien will visit St. Anthony’s (No. 3/2) on April 22, and the Friars come to Staples four days later. Chaminade (No. 8/19) visits Darien on April 13 and Wilton on May 6 with a visit from Fairfield Prep on April 15.