Tigers keep showing fight, rally past Prep

RIDGEFIELD — All that matters to Ridgefield senior midfelder Owen Gaydos is that he and his boys lacrosse teammates have won their first three games. Talk about the way they got there all you’d like, he said, but that’s the big thing after Saturday’s 13- 5 win over Fairfield Prep at Tiger Hollow.

“For us as a team, we’re picking up on our own identity, and that’s that we don’t quit. We’re fighters,” Gaydos said after a 9- 0 run for the No. 2 Tigers erased an early deficit and made it an easy one against No. 4 Fairfield Prep.

“You saw it obviously against New Canaan ( when a 7- 4 halftime deficit turned into a 10- 9 win on Thursday). We got down in the first half. This game, we were down in the first half and came back. That’s just who we are.”

After everyone lost the 2020 season to the COVID- 19 pandemic, 2021 was going to be new for everyone. Mistakes led to turnovers led to runs of goals in Saturday’s game, as it has in many games in the first eight days of the season.

Ridgefield coach Roy Colsey loves his team’s energy, though.

“I think we’re building an identity. That’s important,” he said. “You go year to year to year to year, an identity kind of sticks. It rolls over to the next year. The kids bring it with them. It kind of sticks around.

“You miss a year, you kind of lose that: The identity is lost, and you’re starting over. We’re rebuilding an identity with this group of kids. For me, that’s been the best part, watching them grow together, watching them learn, watching them start to understand their roles and support each other.”

Fairfield Prep ( 2- 1), which has several freshmen playing key roles on defense has and sophomores all over the field, capitalized on early Ridgefield turnovers and dominated possession in the first quarter

to take a 3- 0 lead.

Ridgefield settled down after that and forced turnovers, particularly early in the third as it broke the game open.

“I don’t know if you just heard me, I just said it to ( the players),” Fairfield Prep coach Graham Niemi said. “A little adversity, you lose your fundamentals. You lose your details, trying to get it all back in one shot or one play. ... That’s not the way it works. Listen, the best lessons are learned the hard way. Everybody knows that. We learned the hard way today.”

PLAYER OF THE GAME

You could pick a lot of Tigers, but to pick one, Luke Winkler set up the tying goal late in the second quarter, set up the go- ahead goal early in the third and scored to cap the five- goal third. He led a balanced attack with five points.

NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING

Gaydos said he hadn’t seen any film on the Jesuits’ wins over Guilford and Hand.

“We kind of had to get used to their playing style,” he said.

For the second game in a row, Ridgefield moved Kai Prohaszka to take faceoffs in the second half and helped turn possession around, with Gaydos and Joe Misurelli helping out.

QUOTABLE

“I thought for a half you saw we’ve got a pretty good lacrosse team, and for a half you saw we weren’t a very good lacrosse team. That’s OK. We’ve had 13 practices. It’s the middle of April.” — Fairfield Prep coach Graham Niemi