ppickens@bcnnew.com

With a young team, and in a season where the Fairfield Warde boys' lacrosse team lost five consecutive games, it's hard to believe that the state playoffs are still a realistic option.

But they are.

The Mustangs made an important statement on Wednesday knocking off Stamford, 14-9. In a year full of ups and downs, Warde is now on the up side of the ledger, having won two consecutives games with a very winnable game against lowly Trinity Catholic coming tonight.

There is more to this streak than meets the eye. Head coach Tom Cunningham is finally starting to see his defense mature. But when a freshman, Alex Delani, is one of your key defenders, it is understandable to reason why your defense may struggle especially early on in the season.

"The team has better executed what the coaches have gone over," Cunningham said of his defense. "We've put more pressure on the ball and forced more turnovers.

"We haven't let them inside for easy chances."

The Mustangs pressure has paid off, it forced the Black Knights into several turnovers on Wednesday and has been allowing much fewer goals. Over Warde's last four games, where the Mustangs have gone 3-1, they've allowed just 28 goals, an average of

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only seven per game.

Although it isn't just the defense that keeps goals off of the board. Ball possession is also one of the keys, and it doesn't hurt that Warde has one of the best faceoff men in the FCIAC in John Abbey.

"It's always important to get the faceoffs, to get the ground balls," Cunningham said. "It's a good way to kill their momentum when they score a goal or two. We get Abbey out there to get a faceoff win and it slows them down."

When Abbey gets his faceoff win he's been able to get the ball to star attackers Taylor Wicke and Andrew Kelly. Kelly and Wicke have scored more than their fair share of goals this season, but Cunningham and offense coach Pete Greco, have installed new plays to help the Mustangs expand from just a two-headed monster.

"[Greco] is definitely helping us out with the new offense," Wicke said. "We're definitely getting a lot of opportunities and a lot of goals as well."

Sam Eckerson, and Scott Hyman have been the beneficiaries as each tallied more than three goals on Wednesday.

"We put in some new things and it is opening up the offense a little bit more," Cunningham said. "We're creating more opportunities for other people and really getting everybody involved."

At 5-8, and with four straight home games, it isn't out of the realm of possibilities that the Mustangs could go on a run and reach the CIAC playoffs for the first time since Fairfield High School split.

"The past two years have been a big struggle, it's nice to have a couple more wins this year," Wicke said. "Hopefully we'll make states."

Even if they don't get there this year, there are just two seniors on this team. Granted, one is Abbey, but the future does look bright for Fairfield Warde boys' lacrosse.