Darien Boys Volleyball Advance To State Semifinals

The last time the Darien Boys Volleyball team lost in the regular season was over two years ago on March 30, 2019 in five sets against Newtown. That was 36 consecutive regular season wins ago.

The regular season is over and the CIAC State Playoffs have begun. Darien was awarded a first round bye and their first game would be on June 4th in a quarterfinal matchup against the winner of the June 2nd first round game between Newtown and Shelton. Given the quarterfinal is a state playoff game, Darien's regular season win streak was safe, but given that Newtown was the last team to beat Darien and had just prevailed over Shelton, Darien's perfect 20-0 record did not feel safe.

Darien was the top seed in the Class L state tourney. (Class L consists of the largest schools in the state.) Newtown was the ninth seed and a very a worthy opponent, but Darien was only threatened once or twice. Darien swept Newtown in straight sets, 25-18, 25-22, 25-16, and the outcome was never really in doubt.

A normal season has Darien scheduling one or more games against out-of-conference volleyball powerhouses like Newtown and Joel Barlow. Due to the pandemic, The Blue Wave Boys were limited to playing only FCIAC schools during the regular season and were not tested as often as they would have liked. Darien won 17 consecutive games without any losses for a 17-0 regular season record -- the first perfect regular season in the program's history. Darien then swept all three of their FCIAC tourney games in consecutive sets to run their record to 20-0 en route to their sixth FCIAC title in the fifteen years of the program's existence.

The Blue Wave have lost only two sets this entire season -- both times to New Canaan during the regular season. Trumbull came close to winning the third set in the regular season, but Darien prevailed 28-26. Trumbull played the regular season matchup with Darien without their star Middle Hitter, Sage Gatling. Gatling returned to action recently and was instrumental in their win over Conard in the Class L quarterfinal game on June 5. Conard looked like the better team during the first set, beating Trumbull 25-21. For the next three sets Trumbull looked like the best team in the state, beating Conard in four sets. Gatling's kills were nearly unstoppable.

The CIAC tourney is down to the Final Four -- Darien (18-0) vs. Trumbull (16-3) and Enfield (17-1) vs. Glastonbury (15-3). The competition and has gotten tougher each round as the stakes have gotten higher. Win and advance. Lose and go home. When Darien lines up against Trumbull on Tuesday evening in Shelton at 7:00 p.m. for the state semifinal game it will be Darien's most difficult game of the season. The winner will most likely end up being crowned the state champion.