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New Canaan attackman Harry Stanton gets decked by a Greenwich defenseman earlier this month. The Cardinals and Rams will meet for the FCIAC championship Friday.

It was one of the worst defeats suffered by the Greenwich High boys lacrosse team in recent memory, a 12-0 dismantling at the hands of rival New Canaan.

Twenty-two days later, the Cardinals have a chance to make it ancient history. Fourth-seeded Greenwich will meet none other than New Canaan in Friday’s FCIAC championship, and payback is sure to be on the mind of the surging Cardinals, who are now winners of six straight.

Greenwich’s May 2 road loss at Dunning Stadium certainly comes with an asterisk. The Cardinals were without coach Scott Bulkley, high-scoring middie Alex Moeser and attack Decker Curran.

Darien coach Jeff Brameier, who knows a thing or two about winning championships, having won eight FCIAC and eight state titles since 2000 alone, offered his thoughts on Friday’s title tilt.

“You have a team in Greenwich that is starting to get on a roll and has gotten healthy,” Brameier said. “Certainly Greenwich is in a position where they have all the motivation after the 12-0 shellacking they took earlier in the season. They were missing their coach and some key kids.”

The Rams, oh by the way, are pretty darn good. So don’t think their dominance over Greenwich earlier this month was the result of Greenwich’s short-comings. New Canaan and goalie Trent Nader are allowing a paltry 4.5 goals a game.

“New Canaan is very sold straight across the board,” Brameier said. “They’re solid in the goal and they have a senior-laden defense that is keeping them in all their games. They are very solid and very well coached. You have the three senior long poles in Eric Persky, John Rhudy and Thomas Costigan. They’ve been doing a great job.”

GREENWICH WILL WIN IF: “If the offensive firepower comes to play and capitalizes on its shots and (Graham) Savio can win his faceoffs,” Brameier said.

Greenwich’s talented trio of Kyle Foote, Moeser and Curran are as dangerous as any other threesome in the FCIAC. Curran has yet to play since missing the first meeting with New Canaan, but others have stepped up in his absence, including Ryan Flippin.

“Greenwich has some formidable offensive firepower and three kids that are legit, high-end offensive players in Alex Moeser, Kyle Foote and Decker Curran, and some good role players,” Brameier said. “Graham Savio, who is their face off specialist, is a great off the ball player. They’ve been getting good play from Ryan Flippin too.”

NEW CANAAN WILL WIN IF: “They can control Foote, Moeser and Curran and convert their own scoring opportunities,” Brameier said.

The Rams had their way at the offensive end of the field last time behind Henry Stanton and Puck Richardson, but Greenwich certainly hopes to give the Rams a different experience in the championship. Richardson sat out New Canaan’s semifinal win over Darien, but coach Chip Buzzeo said he expected Richardson back for the final.

“Greenwich’s defense is an underrated group,” Brameier said. “Their defense is younger, but Jack Harrington, Jack Nail and Shawn Dunster at the long poles are doing a very nice job. They have a little a zone their package. It will be interesting to see how it affects New Canaan.”

X-FACTOR: X literally marks the spot in this case. Greenwich’s Savio is one of the best faceoff specialists in the state, if not the best. His ability to win possessions for the Cardinals could be a difference maker.

“If it’s a high-scoring game, that turns into a lot more possessions,” Brameier said. “If there is a lot of scoring and faceoffs, you can get the ball back, but you have to score. That’s when it can steamroll for you. New Canaan is too well coached to just let (Savio win all the faceoffs). They have Perksy take the faceoffs. He may not win them, but he is able to stop the fast break. They’ll make adjustments.”

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At this point, it would probably be difficult to argue the Darien and New Canaan girls lacrosse teams aren’t the top two teams in the FCIAC, if not the state. And on Friday at Brien McMahon High School in Norwalk at 4 p.m., both will make a bid for the conference crown.

Darien’s Ellie Bennett, left, and New Canaan’s Kelly Armstrong battle for a loose ball during the Blue Waves’ 14-7 win earlier this season. The teams will meet again for the FCIAC championship. (Bob Luckey/Staff photographer)

PICK YOUR STATISTIC: Whether you go by their regular season record against the rest of the FCIAC (24-0, excluding their game against one another, a 14-7 Darien win on April 25), their tournament seeds (Darien is No. 1 and New Canaan is No. 2), or the fact neither has failed to win a game by fewer than seven goals in either of the two preceding rounds of the FCIAC tournament, the Rams and Wave have established themselves as the cream of the crop in the FCIAC.

Do the best two teams always meet in the championship? No. But in this case, they are.

SCORING THREATS APLENTY: To say both teams are loaded with players that can score would probably be an understatement. Multi-goal games are one thing, but both the Rams and the defending conference champion Blue Wave boast several players fully capable of exploding for four, five, six goals in any given game.

Take the FCIAC tournament for example. In New Canaan’s 12-5 quarterfinal win over Staples, multi-goal performers included Elizabeth Miller (4), Olivia Hompe (3), Bea Eppler (2) and Lily Citrin (2). Meanwhile, while picking up a 22-5 quarterfinal victory of their own over Fairfield Warde, Darien boasted seven multi-goal performers: Emily Stein (4), Brooke Connors (3), Mariah Matheis (3), Dillon Schoen (2) Hollis Perticone (2), Kristen Gilbert (2) and Kathryn Payne (2).

On to the semis. New Canaan won by an even larger margin than the first round, 14-6 over Greenwich, and five more players found the back of the net more than once: Hompe (4), Miller (3), Katie DeMarno (2), Isabel Taben (2) and Brianna McEwan (2). Darien’s 21-goal outburst in its 21-9 win over Danbury featured another trio of multi-goal outputs: Schoen (6), Stein (5) and Jena Fritts (4).

New Canaan goalie Liz O’Sullivan and Darien netminder Caylee Waters, both talented keepers, may have something to say about it, but with so many talented snipers on each side, a high-scoring battle for the crown could be on the horizon.

NEW CANAAN VS. DARIEN: If there’s anything we know about this rivalry, it’s nearly impossible to predict exactly how the game will play out, regardless of the sport.

Darien went into New Canaan and pulled away for a 14-7 victory the first time around, but all bets are off in the conference championship. And with the FCIAC title up for grabs, the rivalry takes a backseat to the prize – sort of. After all, what better way to finish off a championship season than taking down your biggest rival – and your biggest competition – in the title game?

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In a game that featured just two second half goals, the New Canaan boys lacrosse team defeated Darien 5-3 to advance to the Friday’s FCIAC championship game. No. 2 New Canaan will look for back-to-back titles but will have to get past No. 4 Greenwich to do so.

DEFENSE: Led by goalie Trent Nader and defensemen John Rhudy and Eric Persky, the Rams defense has been strong all season, giving up an average of just 5.2 goals per game. Even so, holding Darien to just three markers was an especially impressive feat, and it was needed due to the absence of Puck Richardson on offense.

Darien defenseman Daniel Traver covers New Canaan’s Duke Repko during Tuesday’s FCIAC semifinals. (Mark Conrad/For Hearst Newspapers)

“We had a feeling it would be low scoring just because of the way Darien has been playing. Darien is a great team. They played the hardest schedule by far in Connecticut,” New Canaan coach Chip Buzzeo said. “Could we hold Darien to five, six or seven? We hoped. This is what happens in the playoffs. Playoffs are tight.”

Despite the lack of scoring, the Blue Wave still managed to take 22 shots, just one fewer than New Canaan.

“(New Canaan goalie Trent Nader) really stopped a lot of point blank shots, a lot of good shots,” Darien coach Jeff Brameier said. “And we missed the net. We missed. So we’ve got to do a better job.”

WHAT BACK-TO-BACK TITLES WOULD MEAN: In every sport at every level, there’s a champion each season. And while winning the FCIAC crown in such a talented conference is certainly no small feat, back-to-back titles would undeniably establish New Canaan as the best in the FCIAC.

Just as impressive, the Rams would have won the two championships with two different head coaches. New Canaan lost several important seniors to graduation from last year’s squad, and yet here it is again just a single win shy of another title.

“We knew we could get back here to the championship, and we definitely proved something today,” said New Canaan’s Henry Stanton, who scored three goals. “It’s great to get three goals, but it’s even better as a team to get back to the championship and try to defend our title.”

RAMS-WAVE PART III?: Will we get to see Round 3 of Rams vs. Blue Wave? The border rivals met in the finals of last year’s state championship game, an 11-5 Darien win, and it’s possible that it could happen again.

The brackets have not yet been released, but New Canaan would face the daunting challenge of taking down Darien three times in a season, while the Blue Wave would be hoping that the third time is the charm.

“Hopefully, we’ll get a chance to see them. We’re in a bracket where we have to go all the way to the finals,” Brameier said. “So, take it one game at a time in states, and if they make it to the finals and we make it, then we get a rematch. But that’s all we can shoot for right now.”