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We have eight teams coming off of strong performances on the menu for the Overtime FCIAC Team of the Week vote.

Your finalists are: the Fairfield Ludlowe girls tennis, New Canaan softball, Stamford girls lacrosse, Staples boys volleyball, Danbury girls lacrosse, Greenwich baseball, Westhill boys track and Ridgefield boys lacrosse teams.

The winner will get our T-shirts and a plaque, courtesy of BlueStreak Sports Training, Garden Catering, the Stamford Advocate, Karl Chevrolet, Innovative Health and Rehabilitation, Riko’s Pizza, Mitchells/Richards, Bobby Valentine’s Sports Gallery Cafe, Voice of an Angel and Dr. Brown’s Baby Products.

The Falcons defeated New Canaan for the first time and town rival Fairfield Warde in the FCIAC quarterfinals.

The Rams went 3-1, with wins over Fairfield Ludlowe and Greenwich, to clinch the No. 6 seed.

The Black Knights finished the regular season by outscoring Fairfield Warde and Brien McMahon by a 25-7 margin.

The Wreckers defeated Ridgefield, Greenwich and New Canaan to finish the FCIAC regular season unbeaten.

The Hatters ran their win streak to 10 with their first FCIAC playoff win, over Wilton in the final seconds.

The Cardinals went 4-0, with wins over Trumbull, New Canaan and Danbury, to clinch the No. 1 seed.

The Vikings won the city track title with a victory over Stamford, 102-48.

The Tigers defeated Somers (N.Y) and then Fairfield Ludlowe in the FCIAC quarterfinals.

The voting is open until noon on Wednesday. So vote below and check back to find out who is this week’s Overtime FCIAC Team of the Week.

(I invite you to follow me on Twitter: @DaveRuden and like the Overtime Facebook fan page.)

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The Staples baseball team is the Overtime FCIAC Team of the Week.

The Wreckers will get T-shirts courtesy of BlueStreak Sports Training, Garden Catering, the Stamford Advocate, Karl Chevrolet, Innovative Health and Rehabilitation, Riko’s Pizza, Mitchells/Richards, Bobby V’s Restaurant, Voice of an Angel and Dr. Brown’s Baby Products.

Staples beat off strong challenges from the Trumbull softball, Fairfield Ludlowe girls lacrosse, Greenwich boys lacrosse, St. Joseph softball, Ridgefield boys golf, Danbury baseball, Wilton girls lacrosse and New Canaan girls lacrosse teams.

We will pick a new set of finalists for this week’s award, with the vote starting Sunday.

(I invite you to follow me on Twitter: @DaveRuden and like the Overtime Facebook fan page.)

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Westhill’s Morgan Kurtz is one of the Rae’s Day scholarship winners.

Leading up to Sunday’s annual fundraising Walk to Remember, the Rae’s Day scholarship winners were announced on Tuesday: Morgan Kurtz of Westhill, Kellie Hurd of Trinity Catholic and Katie DeBrisco of Stamford High School.

The three will be honored during this weekend’s second-annual walk, which raises money for the Rachel Sottosanti Memorial Fund, which was formed to honor and commemorate the life of Rachel Sottosanti, the former Westhill shortstop who took her own life at the age of 19.

Sottosanti was a popular student, talented athlete and was active in serving as a role model working with various sports leagues.

The fund has worked hard and done incredible work to both perpetuate Sottosanti’s memory and bring awareness and educate people on suicide prevention. There was a forum for parents held at Westhill on May 6.

Sunday’s activities, which run from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m., include a 5k walk and 3k run, at Cove Island.

Last year’s Walk was a huge success, brought together the Stamford sports community and raised a lot of money. The expectations are this year’s event will be even larger and more successful.

To learn more about the Rachel Sottosanti Memorial Fund, click here.

(I invite you to follow me on Twitter: @DaveRuden and like the Overtime Facebook fan page.)

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Former Stamford High softball star Melissa Giordano is going back to the NCAA Tournament, this time as a coach at her alma mater, Marist. (Photo courtesy of Marist College)

Success has followed Melissa Giordano around the softball diamond like a shadow. She parlayed a stellar career at Stamford High School into a scholarship at Marist College. In Giordano’s freshman season, the Red Foxes went to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history.

As a senior, Giordano was named the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference’s Player of the Year. Giordano led the MAAC in batting average (.429), hits (66), runs (42), doubles (19) and on-base percentage (.491). She finished with eight home runs and 21 RBIs.

Giordano decided to pursue a coaching career, and spent last season as a full-time assistant with her alma mater, Stamford High.

This year lightning has struck twice. Giordano has returned to her second alma mater and now is going back to the NCAA Tournament.

Marist won the MAAC title last weekend with a win over Fairfield. Wednesday morning the Red Foxes (30-24) fly out to Norman, Okla., where they will open on Friday against host Oklahoma, the No. 1 team in the country.

“It’s awesome,” Giordano, who is the first base coach, said in a telephone interview Tuesday night. “In the beginning of the season all the girls had a goal of winning the MAACs and going to the tournament, and you could tell they were on a mission.”

Giordano provided a little inspiration before the clinching game with Fairfield. “I had never shown them my championship ring before,” Giordano said. “I brought it with me and decided to show it to them and get them a little more pumped up, even more than before.”

Giordano said going back to the tournament did not really resonate until watching the selection show on Sunday night.

“You play in a championship game and you want to win, and it’s so exciting when you do,” Giordano said. “But then you get to play a team you watch on TV and that will probably make the World Series. It’s amazing.”

Giordano vividly recalls her first trip to the tournament, which included a loss to eventual champion Arizona and then Auburn.

Giordano hopes to eventually become a college head coach. Her career trajectory is on the right track.

“College girls are different than high school girls,” she said. “At any level, as a female coach, you have to earn your players’ respect. Even though I played, I had to earn their respect and they had to earn my respect. I had to show them I was serious about this.”

Giordano had a storied playing career for Marist. She is the program’s career leader in batting average at .371, hits with 236, doubles with 50 and at bats with 635. She’s second in runs with 118 and fourth with 22 home runs.

Going to the NCAA Tournament as a player was memorable. Giordano said she anticipates this weekend to surpass her previous experience.

“I’m just as excited as I was or even more so, because I know what it’s like to be there,” Giordano said.

Whatever happens, one thing is certain: Marist has never reached the NCAA Tournament without Melissa Giordano in uniform.

(I invite you to follow me on Twitter: @DaveRuden and like the Overtime Facebook fan page.)

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Henry Wynne of the Staples boys track team, Hannah DeBalsi of the Staples girls track team and Ellie Gravitte of the Ridgefield girls track team are this week’s BlueStreak-Overtime FCIAC Players of the Week.

Wynne, DeBalsi and Gravitte will each receive T-shirts and plaques from BlueStreak Sports Training.

Wynne set a school record with a time of 1:51.87 in the 800 at the Greater Hartford Invitational and anchored the winning 4×400 relay team, which finished in a time of 3:26.41

DeBalsi, a freshman, won the 3,200 at the Louck’s Games with a time of 10:20.70, a school record and currently the 10th fastest time in the nation.

Gravitte won the javelin at the Louck’s Games for the second straight year with a throw of 135 feet, 7 inches.

To nominate an athlete, click on this link and email in the name of the person you are nominating.

Please include all of the player’s statistics for the week as well as the team results.

The award will be judged on games/matches/meets played Monday through Saturday of each week. Please wait until an athlete is done competing for the week to submit your nomination.

(I invite you to follow me on Twitter: @DaveRuden or like the Overtime Facebook fan page.)

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The chatter started back in March: this was the season the Staples baseball team would finally take a fall back to the pack. The Wreckers had won three of the previous five FCIAC titles, given the parity in the league an extraordinary accomplishment (consider since Trinity Catholic won back to back championships in 1999 and 2000, no other school has won two titles less than five years apart).

The skeptics certainly looked correct when a midseason three-game losing streak left the team at 4-4.

“We still felt we were right there,” said Staples coach Jack McFarland, noting that two of the losses, to Ridgefield and Fairfield Ludlowe, were by just one run. “We sat the kids down after 10 games and told them this is what we had to do. We had to treat every game like it is an elimination game. This is what we are going to have to do to make it to the FCIAC Tournament for the sixth straight year.”

Staples coach Jack McFarland contests a call during a game against St. Joseph.

Mission accomplished. The Wreckers enter this final week of the regular season riding a four-game winning streak. The highlight was last Friday’s 3-2 road win over Greenwich, which today would be the top seed in the FCIAC Tournament. They have won six of their last seven games, the lone loss a 4-3 decision to St. Joseph, which is a half game behind the Cardinals.

“Obviously we were down and a little disappointed, but if you look at the scores we lost by… We just had to correct a few things. Our pitchers weren’t throwing enough strikes. If you don’t throw strikes the defense gets bored.”

McFarland said the Wreckers no longer have a set pitching rotation. He goes by feel, selecting a pitcher he thinks will create the most difficult matchup for opponents.

Staples is hardly a lock for the league playoffs. Right now it has a tenuous hold on the No. 8 spot. The Wreckers are tied with Wilton but won the teams’ meeting last Monday. Darien is just a game behind. And the final three games start at Danbury and Trumbull, which is just a game ahead of Staples right now.

The season ends with a game against Bassick, so a 2-1 week will likely get the Wreckers into the playoffs. Going 3-0 might earn them a No. 6 seed. One thing is certain: a Greenwich, St. Joseph, New Canaan or Ridgefield is going to be the top seed. You think any of them want to earn that reward and see Staples in the opening round?

“We’ve fed off of that,” McFarland said. “We’re not in and probably nobody wants us in, but we feel if we get in we can do something.”

The Eagles have landed — back in the race

After two seasons away from the FCIAC Tournament, a prominent league coach told me he expected Trumbull to rebound this season and earn one of the lower seeds for the playoffs. That looked like an impossibility after the Eagles opened the season 1-5.

Since then, Trumbull has come storming back. It won eight of the previous nine games — including a victory over Westhill and Friday’s 9-0 rout of Danbury — before suffering a tough 6-4 loss in 11 innings to Greenwich on Sunday.

Now, one of the best storylines of the regular season’s final week is the battle between three teams for the final two spots. The Eagles would have jumped by tiebreaker into the 8th spot with a win over the Cardinals. They are now a game behind Danbury and two behind New Canaan.

Trumbull will be an underdog in just one of its final four games, against town rival St. Joseph, and has two other games against similar level teams. New Canaan has to play four games in four days, and the first three are Fairfield Ludlowe, Westhill and Greenwich. Danbury still has Ludlowe and Greenwich as part of its four final games.

So while the battle at the top — just 2 1/2 games separate the top teams right now — will be compelling the one at the bottom will also provide plenty of intrigue.

Top of the order

BASEBALL

1. ST. JOSEPH (14-2): The Cadets have won nine straight and are in the middle of a four-team race for the top seed in next week’s FCIAC Tournament. Based on recent history, and more so this year, seedings mean little.

2. NEW CANAAN (13-3): The Rams return to the top 3 — the only reason for their absence was having the most recent loss of the teams ahead — and are considered by many the thinnest of favorites heading into the league playoffs.

3. GREENWICH (14-3): The Cardinals, with Sunday’s big win over Trumbull, have moved a half-game in front for the conference’s best record.

SOFTBALL

1. ST. JOSEPH (13-3): I saw the Cadets on Friday for the second time — I will see them again Wednesday — and they came away with an impressive 7-0 win over Stamford. Right now they have the best balance of pitching, offense and defense that I have seen so far.

2. DARIEN (14-3): The Blue Wave are part of the four-way tie for the top seed heading into the final week. Right now they are the X-factor because of the way Erika Osherow has been dominating on the mound. Looking forward to seeing her Monday against Stamford.

3. WESTHILL (13-3): The Vikings have the best overall offense, 1 through 9 in the batting order, in the league. In the year of the hitter, will that carry them to a championship?

(I invite you to follow me on Twitter: @DaveRuden and like the Overtime Facebook fan page.)