Blue Wave blast Cards behind Schwind’s hat trick
DARIEN — A rough final game and a subsequent week off, thanks to owning a No. 1 seed, caused a bit of concern for Darien boys ice hockey coach Mac Budd.
As it turned out, the Blue Wave were just fine.
Bobby Whittaker scored 16 seconds after the opening puck drop and Darien fired in four goals in the first seven minutes on its way to a wild 7-3 victory over Greenwich in the FCIAC semifinals Wednesday at the Darien Ice House.
Junior Charlie Schwind led the scoring with a hat trick, scoring once in the first period, and twice in the second. Whittaker scored the first two goals of the game and followed the opening salvo with a goal at 1:37.
“I was worried with how we’d come out,” Budd said. “But, boy, what a first period.”
The victory puts Darien in the FCIAC final for the first time since 2020, when the Wave lost to New Canaan in the final.
Their last conference championship was in 2015.
Top-seeded Darien (135-3) will face the No. 2 seed Fairfield co-op (17-2-1) in the final at 3 p.m., Saturday, at the Danbury Ice Arena.
Last year, Darien was knocked out in the semifinal round thanks to a shutout performance by Ridgefield goalie Henry Ertl.
There were no scoring problems this time around.
“Throughout the whole year, we haven’t come out really strong in the first period, so we’ve been really working on that,” Schwind said. “All three lines were going and it helped that Bobby (Whittaker) got that first goal. After that, we were going.”
Whittaker’s two goals were followed quickly by a Graf Ely tally at 4:18, which knocked Greenwich goalie Cole Studwell from the game. Schwind’s first goal came at 7:38 of the first period against Nicholas Sinisi.
Down 4-0, No. 5 Greenwich (7-14-1) got one back
on a goal by Will Duncan just 15 seconds later, but the Wave dominated with a 12-2 shots advantage in the first period.
“That was obviously the best first period that we’ve played all year,” Budd said. “I’ve said all year long that I think Greenwich is a great team and their record isn’t at all indicative of what kind of team they are. So it meant a lot to get off to that start. It was very important and that was the game for us.”
Greenwich was coming off a 3-1 victory over No. 4 Ridgefield in the FCIAC’s first round, but the early deficit was too much to overcome.
“It’s a 7-3 final and it was 4-0 seven minutes into the game,” Greenwich coach Jack Duffy said. “Obviously, you’ve got to be mentally prepared to play a game and we weren’t. That’s on me, and that’s on the boys. You want to give yourself a chance to win and we didn’t do that tonight.”
Schwind scored both of the second-period goals for a five-goal lead.
The Cardinals showed some life in the third period. Duncan netted his second and Crosby Newi scored to make it 6-3 with 4:17 remaining. But that was as close as it got.
“There’s lessons to be learned,” Duffy said. “You could pack it in and get beaten up and embarrassed and we were close there, but the boys made a choice to come out and play hard in the third period. You try to take a positive out of this, but it’s very difficult to do that tonight.”
Darien, which had an empty-netter from Jack Marisca with seven seconds left, finished with a dominating 36-16 shots advantage.
With one more FCIAC game to play, Schwind said the Wave is confident.
“Hopefully, we’ll get in a couple of good practices before Saturday,” he said. “Both the co-op and New Canaan are really great teams but I think if we play our game, we can come out with the win.”
Player of the game
Charlie Schwind, Darien: Whittaker got the Wave off to a great start, and Schwind put the hammer down with three straight goals for Darien, the last of which made it 6-1 in the second period.
Quotable
“Regardless of who we play, they’re both superb teams and at this point in the year, there’s not a lot we’re going to tell them in the locker room. They know what they have to do and it’s going to be more about compete and winning 50-50 battles than anything else. We’re in a good spot. I’m happy with the way we’re playing right now.” — Darien coach Mac Budd