The CIAC released its boys’ and girls’ lacrosse pairings this morning and while the final girls’ seedings gave favorable placements to No. 2 Hand in Class M and No. 2 Cheshire in Class L, the scheduling gods weren’t so kind to the defending Class L champion Cheshire boys.
The Cheshire boys team will face Fairfield Prep today in the SCC tournament championship at Branford at 3 p.m. The Rams, 8-8 in the regular season, drew the No. 17 seed and will have to play at Danbury in a qualifying round game on Saturday at noon. Win that game and the Rams advance to the first round where it will face host and No. 1 seed Newtown.
Ouch.
While the Rams have been playing its best lacrosse of the season lately and have the talent to win those games, playing back-to-back games is a very tough way to start a tournament.
Fairfield Prep drew the No. 4 seed and will host the Southington-Westhill qualifying round winner on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. Other top teams in L are No. 2 Staples, No. 5 Glastonbury, No. 12 Greenwich and No. 8 Simsbury
No. 1 seed Darien, which is also ranked No. 1 in the Register Top 10 poll, should take no prisoners in Class M for its seventh straight championship. No. 16 Notre Dame-West Haven has the unenviable task of facing host Darien in the first round on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m.
Other local teams with a shot to go far are No. 10 Hand, who has one of the state’s best face-off specialists with Casey Dowd, and No. 13 Guilford.
Somers drew the No. 1 seed in Class S but defending champion and No. 5 seed Weston is the team to beat with Ledyard and Barlow also challengers for the title.
In the girls’ tournament, which goes from a Division I-II format to a Class L-M-S format this season, Hand and Cheshire have a solid opportunity to finally make some state tournament noise.
The Tigers have never made it to a final since the CIAC has sanctioned the tournament in 2004 but they are in a position to turn that around. First, Hand is the No. 2 seed and gets home-field advantage at least through the quarterfinals. Second, Hand gets a great schedule break competing in the lower bracket. Since 2004, No. 1 Wilton, No. 8 New Canaan and No. 13 Darien have won six of the last seven D-I titles. All three of those teams are in the M upper bracket. Hand has a great shot to get to its first final.
Like Hand, Cheshire has never been to a CIAC final but like Hand in M, Cheshire has been put in a position to go far in Class L. The Rams are the No. 2 seed and have home-field advantage at least through the quarterfinals. Like Hand in M, Cheshire is in the lower bracket and three of the toughest teams in L are in the upper bracket – No. 1 Newtown, No. 4 Staples and No. 5 Glastonbury.
In Class S, Haddam-Killingworth, which ended the regular season 15-1 to earn the coveted No. 1 seed, gets a first round bye and then plays host to the Morgan-Immaculate winner in the quarterfinals on June 6. No. 5 Weston and No. 7 Granby are other top challengers in S.