New Canaan defended its FCIAC championship and then went on to win the program’s first state championship to highlight what was a very good FCIAC boys’ volleyball season.
New Canaan’s senior outside hitter Nolan McClaughlin was the game’s MVP for the second consecutive year while helping lead New Canaan to a 3-0 victory over Ridgefield by the scores of 25-21, 25-18 and 25-21 in the 2026 FCIAC Boys Volleyball Tournament championship game on May 28 at Stamford High School’s Paul Kuczo Gymnasium.
New Canaan defeated Stamford and Ridgefield beat Trumbull by the identical scores of 3-1 in the FCIAC semifinals on May 26 at Kuczo Gym.
In the quarterfinals it was New Canaan over Fairfield Ludlowe, Ridgefield over Bridgeport Central, Stamford over Darien, and Trumbull over Norwalk by the shutout scores of 3-0.
Fifteen days after New Canaan’s successful FCIAC title defense, coach Amy Andrews 22-1 New Canaan Rams were most impressive when they won the 2026 Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference Class M Boys Volleyball Tournament championship with a 3-0 victory a top-seeded Maloney team which came into the match with a 23-1 record.
The Rams really stepped up their game and came through came through with a supreme performance in winning by the scores of 25-21, 25-11, 25-22 on June 12 at Newtown High School to finish the season with a 23-1 record.
McLaughlin fired in 12 kills and senior setter Dylan Ho had 26 assists to pace a balanced team effort that included solid defense and blocking at the net by seniors John Murphy, Gavin Dinning, Liam Hall and Zane Tickoo, and some more solid defense on the back row by libero Lucas Breed.
Ridgefield’s third-seeded Tigers won three games to advance to the CIAC Class L Boys Volleyball Tournament final and top-seeded Shelton won that match, 3-0, by the scores of 25-19, 25-18, 25-16.
Ridgefield, Norwalk, Stamford, and Trumbull all won in the first round to advance to the Class L quarterfinals and No. 5 seed Stamford advanced to the semifinals with a 3-1 victory over No. 4 seed Trumbull by the scores of 25-20, 27-25, 15-25, 25-17.
In the Class L state tournament semifinals: Ridgefield advanced to the Class L championship match with a 3-2 victory over No. 2 seed Glastonbury by the scores of 23-25, 25-16, 23-25, 25-23, 15-9, and No. 1 seed and eventual champion Shelton defeated Stamford, 3-1 (25-12, 25-22, 19-25, 25-14).
Ho and McLaughlin of New Canaan, and Stamford’s senior outside hitter John Thomas were selected to the 2026 GametimeCT All-State Boys Volleyball First Team.
Ho, New Canaan’s superb senior setter, compiled 667 assists this year and ended up with an amazing 2,092 career assists. McLaughlin had 317 kills this year along with 181 digs and 44 aces.
Thomas led his Stamford Black Knights with 467 kills, which ranked him third in the state. He had 1,162 career kills and this year he was ranked eighth in the state with 246 digs.
Trevor Munson and Adam Swiergosz of Ridgefield, and William Stoutenburg of Staples were selected to the GametimeCT All-State Boys Volleyball Second Team.
Seniors Tiago Morales of Norwalk, Jake Patterson of Darien, John Santos of Ridgefield and Zane Tickoo of New Canaan, and Stamford sophomore Dominic Viruete were all GametimeCT All-State Honorable Mention.
Andrews was selected the FCIAC Coach of the Year.
There were a combined 42 players who earned All-FCIAC accolades and the complete list of those who were either all-conference first team, second team, third team or Honorable Mention is on the link below:
2026 All-FCIAC Boys Volleyball