A couple things are for certain regarding girls’ high school lacrosse in the FCIAC.
Darien has had quite a dynastic run under the guidance of veteran coach Lisa Lindley for the last few decades when the Blue Wave has often been among the best programs in the country.
Another annual certainty is that there are plenty of girls from the conference who are among the best female high school lacrosse players in the state and in the country in any given season.
That traditional form held true in both regards once again during an excellent 2025 FCIAC girls’ lacrosse season.
Darien won both the FCIAC Girls Lacrosse Tournament and Class LL state tourney for the second time in the past three seasons, and once again there were many conference players who were recipients of postseason All-FCIAC, All-State, and All-America honors.
Darien extended its FCIAC record to 20 conference championships and then won its 20th state championship 17 days later. It was the 15th time since 1996 that Darien has won FCIAC and state championships in the same season.
And doing that this year was not easy, by any means.
The Blue Wave needed an incredible comeback against a very good New Canaan team in the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference Girls Lacrosse Class LL Tournament championship game to pull it off.
After New Canaan scored the first two goals of the third quarter to take a 5-1 lead, Darien scored five unanswered goals within a span of 11:02 late in the second half to pull out a 6-5 victory in the Class LL state final on June 15 at Fairfield University’s Rafferty Stadium.
Anna Von Kennel scored the game-winning goal with 4:18 remaining in the fourth quarter after receiving a nice pass from Cameron Pokorny.
Von Kennel, the state’s Connecticut High School Coaches Association Player of the Year, was one of the six Darien players who each had one of Darien’s six goals.
Ashton Pinkernell and Riley Schlafman did all the scoring for New Canaan as Pinkernell had a hat trick and Schlafman scored two goals.
New Canaan’s superb senior goalie Ceci Patterson (10 saves), the GameTimeCT Player of the Year, and her teammates limited Darien to just one goal by Caleigh Cummiskey in the first half and New Canaan had a 2-1 halftime lead.
Pinkernell and Schlafman led New Canaan to its 5-1 lead which the Rams maintained through most of the third quarter until sophomore Adriana Gromelski scored Darien’s second goal with 3:20 remaining in the third quarter to begin the comeback.
Pokorny scored the next goal late in the third quarter to cut Darien’s deficit to 5-3. Katie Walsh and Lily Davenport netted goals in the fourth quarter to pull the Blue Wave into a 5-5 tie before Von Kennell’s game-winner in the fourth straight Class LL state championship matchup between Darien and New Canaan.
The two bordering town rivals have taken turns dethroning each other four times in that span. New Canaan dethroned Darien during the even-numbered years of 2022 and ’24, and Darien did the same back to New Canaan in 2023 and ’25.
Darien and New Canaan had also met in the previous five FCIAC championship games until Wilton ended that streak by advancing to this year’s conference final. New Canaan defeated Darien last year and in the 2021 and 2022 FCIAC finals, and Darien beat New Canaan in 2019 and 2023.
This year coach Meredith Meyran’s Wilton Warriors defeated defending champion New Canaan, 9-8, in the semifinals of the FCIAC Girls Lacrosse Tournament. Darien advanced to the final with a 19-13 victory over Ridgefield.
Von Kennel had two goals and a pair of assists and was selected as the game’s Most Valuable Player after helping lead Darien to a 9-3 victory over Wilton in the championship game of FCIAC tournament on May 29 at Brien McMahon High School’s Jack Casagrande Field.
Walsh had two goals and an assist, and Hope Hapgood and Pokorny each scored a pair of goals for the champions, who had a 5-1 halftime lead. Allison Phelan, Liza Fogelson and Gabriella Ray each scored a goal for Wilton.
Wilton and New Canaan posted one-goal victories against each other in postseason semifinal showdowns this year.
Coach Kristin Woods’ New Canaan Rams avenged their 9-8 loss to Wilton in the FCIAC tournament semifinals with a 7-6 double-overtime victory over Wilton in the Class LL state tourney semifinals when Emma Row scored the game-winning goal 43 seconds into the second overtime.
Row had a hat trick, Pinkernell had two goals, and an assist and Patterson had a dozen saves, including a huge save from point-blank range near the end of the first overtime.
Cummiskey had five goals and a pair of assists, Von Kennel contributed two goals and four assists, and Pokorny had two goals and three assists to lead Darien’s balanced scoring attack in its 17-5 victory over Ridgefield in the other Class LL state tournament semifinal game.
There were eight conference players – two each from Darien, New Canaan, Wilton and Ridgefield – who received the highest postseason honors possible as they were All-America players who were also selected to the highest levels of the All-FCIAC and All-State teams.
Anna Von Kennel and Quinn Kennedy of Darien, Ceci Patterson and Emma Row of New Canaan, Mia Sommer and Rose Bilella of Wilton, and Ridgefield’s Grace Winkler and Gabby Lauretani were the eight players selected to the 12-player 2025 GameTimeCT All-State First Team, the All-FCIAC Tier One First Team, and they were also recipients of USA Lacrosse/CHSCA All-America/All-State honors.
Patterson made the All-FCIAC Tier One First Team for the third consecutive year. Row, Winkler and Von Kennel joined her as the other repeat selections.
Patterson, New Canaan’s senior who was ranked by Inside Lacrosse as the No. 1 goalie in the nation, was the GameTimeCT Player of the Year. She will play for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish next year.
Row, a senior attacker for New Canaan, scored 51 goals and had 30 assists while compiling a team-high 81 points.
Von Kennel, Darien’s junior midfielder who was this year’s CHSCA Player of the Year in the state, led the 20-2 Blue Wave with 47 goals and 41 assists. She has verbally committed to being a Florida Gator.
Ridgefield seniors Winkler and Lauretani combined for 219 points this year and next year they’ll be teammates again for defending national champion North Carolina.
Winkler had 64 goals, 35 assists, and 59 draw controls this year and for her career she racked up 322 points (238 goals and 84 assists) and 249 draw controls.
Lauretani finished with amazing career statistics of 351 points, 253 goals, 108 assists, and 455 draw controls after having 80 goals, 40 assists and 151 draw controls as senior. She was selected to the All-FCIAC Tier One Second Team after her sophomore and junior seasons.
The other players selected to the 2025 All-FCIAC Tier One First Team were Annabel Adams, Caleigh Cumminsky, Katie Walsh, Hope Hapgood, Summer Glenday and Sophie Haas of Darien; Ashton Pinkernell, Sydney Patten, Phoebe Schuh, and Addison Crowley of New Canaan; Paige Leung, Abby Phelan and Samantha McDonnell of Wilton; and Ridgefield’s Alex Whitbeck.
Darien finished with a 20-2 record and received all 13 first place votes in the Final 2025 CT Girls Lacrosse Coaches Poll as the top four teams were from the FCIAC.
New Canaan (14-8) was ranked No. 2 and followed by Wilton (16-6) and Ridgefield (14-7).
Conard (18-2), Class L state champion Simsbury (18-3), Class M state champion New Fairfield (22-1), and Class L runner-up Cheshire (16-4) were ranked 4-through-8 and followed by FCIAC teams Greenwich (9-10) and No. 10 Staples (11-8).
Darien was ranked No. 12 and St. Anthony’s (17-0) from Huntington, N.Y. was No. 1 in the final USA Lacrosse High School Girls’ National Top 25 Rankings.