The latest Connecticut High School Girls Soccer Coaches Class LL/L Poll confirmed there will be a No. 1-versus-No. 2 showdown Friday afternoon between the top two ranked teams in the state poll when top-ranked Greenwich plays at No. 2 St. Joseph at 4 p.m. in a rematch of last year’s FCIAC championship game, won by St. Joseph.
Only two points separated the two teams when they both had a handful of first-place votes in the state poll which was released Oct. 13.
The top three ranked teams are FCIAC teams as Ridgefield is ranked third.
Greenwich and St. Joseph each had 10-0-1 records when the poll was released Tuesday and they both improved to 11-0-1 with victories Tuesday.
Friday’s showdown will be St. Joseph’s second big game within a span of three days as the Cadets earned a 2-1 victory at Trumbull on Tuesday, the same day Siena Ettinger scored two goals on assists from Cameron Dionis in Greenwich’s 3-0 home victory over Danbury.
Friday’s game at St. Joseph will be pivotal toward determining the eventual seedings of the teams who will earn the highest seeds in the 2026 FCIAC Girls Soccer Tournament which commences Oct. 27.
Greenwich and St. Joseph are tied for first place in the FCIAC standings with 34 points and their identical 11-0-1 records. Three points are awarded for a win and one point for a tie.
Trumbull is in third place with 30 points and its 10-2-0 record.
Greenwich, St. Joseph, Trumbull, Ridgefield (27 points, 8-0-3 record) and Brien McMahon (23 points, 7-3-2 record) have clinched five of the eight conference tournament berths.
Staples (20 points, 6-4-2) is in sixth place, Fairfield Warde (19 points, 5-3-4) is one point behind Staples in seventh place, and Fairfield Ludlowe (18 points, 5-3-3) is in eighth place.
Those three teams are in good shape to grab those last three playoff berths because Danbury (4-7-1), Darien (4-7-1) and New Canaan (3-5-4) are in a three-way tie for ninth place with 13 points apiece.
St. Joseph and Greenwich played to a scoreless tie in regulation and in two overtime sessions in last year’s FCIAC championship game before St. Joseph prevailed by a 4-1 margin in penalty kicks to win its third conference championship in the previous four seasons.
The top five teams in the current state coaches’ poll are ranked in the same spot where they were ranked in the previous state poll.
Coach Simon Rumbold’s Greenwich Cardinals received 119 polling points and five first-place votes while coach Jack Nogueira’s St. Joseph Cadets got 117 points and six first-place votes.
Ridgefield is ranked third, while fourth-ranked Glastonbury and No. 5 Simsbury each received one first-place vote as they had identical 11-0-0 records when the voting took place.
Notre Dame Prep is ranked No. 6 and Trumbull is No. 7, as the Eagles had a 10-1-0 record at the time of the voting.
Amity (8-1-2), Mercy (8-2-1) and Farmington (8-2-1) are ranked 8-through-10.
Staples received the 14th most polling points as the only FCIAC team among the seven teams in the Others Receiving Votes category.
Greenwich won its first state championship in school history at last season’s Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference Class LL Girls Soccer Tournament with a 4-0 victory over Amity in the championship game.
Second-seeded Greenwich defeated 14th-seeded Ridgefield, 1-0, while fourth-seeded Amity beat eighth-seeded New Canaan, 4-0, in the Class LL semifinals.