Darien Boys Volleyball will host New Canaan at 5:30pm today. This rivalry match is likely to be a struggle for both teams. New Canaan may or may not be the best team Darien has played this season, but they are the only team to have won a set against The Wave.
Darien moved to 12-0 on the season after handing Staples their third loss on Saturday while New Canaan is 10-1. The unredoubtable Rams have only lost five sets all season.
Darien is ranked number one in the state in Class L and New Canaan is ranked number two in the state in Class M. There is not much difference between Class L and M at the top of the rankings. Joel Barlow is number one in Class M which consists of schools with less than 718 boys. Barlow and New Canaan would win easily over many of the larger school teams in Class L which have 718 or more boys.
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Darien has 718 boys and is the smallest of the Class L schools while Barlow has 446 boys and New Canaan has 679 boys. These numbers speak volumes about the quality of all three programs.
Darien has three of the top ranked players in the state and country -- Junior Captain Luke Bradbury, Sophomore Trevor Herget, and Senior Captain Zarek Swetye. Statewide, they are ranked number one in Aces, Hitting Percentage, and Assists, respectively. Bradbury is ranked second in the country with 1.3 Aces Per Set. Herget is ranked ninth in the country with a .467 Hitting Percentage. Swetye is ranked eighteenth in the country with an average of 9.2 assists per set.
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Statistics do not win games. They only matter after the fact. It takes a team effort to win games. New Canaan has a solid team and despite losing Senior Captain Gavin Bramwit to injury they keep winning.
Today's matchup is starting to look like it will be one of the most competitive games of the season.