An unbeaten season which included FCIAC and state championships for Darien High School’s perennially powerful girls ice hockey program highlighted the 2024-25 season for the FCIAC.
Darien won the FCIAC Girls Ice Hockey Tournament championship for the third consecutive year and 11 days later coach Jamie Tropsa’s Blue Wave won the Connecticut High School Girls Hockey Association state championship to finish 22-0.
New Canaan, also a great program which has had its own tradition of collecting many conference and state championships, had another very good season in advancing to the championship games of both the FCIAC and state tournaments.
Coach Rich Bulan’s New Canaan Rams provided strong challenges to Darien throughout the season. New Canaan had a 21-4 record but lost to just one team all year – that undefeated Darien team which beat the Rams both times in the regular season and then two more times in the postseason in four exciting close games.
Darien defeated New Canaan by the scores of 2-1 and 2-0 in the regular season, followed by a 2-0 victory in the FCIAC championship and a 4-2 victory in the CHSGHA state final.
Darien’s star senior forward Sarah Kellogg scored a combined five goals in the finals of the FCIAC and state tournaments and was selected the MVP of the state championship game.
Kellogg’s senior teammate, goalie Bella Lonergan, was named MVP of the FCIAC championship game a few moments after her shutout performance in Darien’s 2-0 victory.
Kellogg had a hat trick after Teagan Joseph scored the goal which gave Darien a 1-0 lead early in the second period to help lead the Blue Wave to its sixth CHSGHA state title with that 4-2 victory in the Wednesday night championship game on March 12 at Quinnipiac University’s M&T Bank Arena.
Mia Avalos assisted Joseph on the first goal and Kellogg scored her second goal on an assist from Adriana Gromelski to stake Darien to a 3-0 lead midway through the second period.
But then the Rams gamely battled back. Darien had a power play and the opportunity to take a 4-0 lead late in the second period when New Canaan’s Fiona Curri netted a short-handed goal.
A couple minutes later Maddie Tully scored her 43rd goal of the season on an assist from Ashton Pinkernell to cut the deficit to 3-2 with 53 seconds remaining in the second period.
Both goalies, Lonergan and New Canaan’s sophomore Macyn Callahan, each had 24 saves and neither of them was scored upon in the third period. Kellogg got her hat trick on an empty-net goal with 20.9 seconds left in the third period.
Gromelski had two goals and an assist to help lead Darien to the championship game with a 4-2 victory over Suffield co-op. Parker Krotee and Haley Hurkala scored Darien’s other goals, Lila Fiorita had a pair of assists, and Lonergan had 16 saves in that semifinal victory.
Callahan stopped 19 shots to shut out Avon/Southington co-op in New Canaan’s 3-0 semifinal victory. Serena O’Connor had a goal and an assist, Isabella Madrid and Tully each scored a goal, while Pinkernell and Maddie Rayher each had an assist for the Rams.
Prior to the state tournament, Kellogg scored the only two goals in the FCIAC championship game when Darien three-peated with its 2-0 victory over New Canaan on March 1 at Darien Ice House.
Krotee got an assist on the first goal. Lonergan stopped 26 shots to get her shutout and the MVP award. Callahan stopped 37 Darien shots.
Several more FCIAC teams continued to improve and further display steady development with their own programs, four of them which are cooperative teams.
Darien had 12 points to finish in first place with its 6-0-0 FCIAC record, and New Canaan (5-1-0) was runner-up with 10 points. The Stamford/Westhill/Staples cooperative program (3-2-1) finished third with six points.
Fairfield Ludlowe/Warde co-op (2-4-0), Trumbull/St. Joseph (1-3-2), and Greenwich (2-4-0) each tied for fourth place with four points apiece. Fairfield Ludlowe/Warde snatched the fourth and final FCIAC playoff berth via its victories in the regular season over the other two teams.
Darien and New Canaan both won by shutouts in the FCIAC Tournament semifinals. Darien advanced to the final with an 8-0 victory over Fairfield co-op and New Canaan shut out Stamford/Westhill/Staples, 3-0.
Tully had 43 goals and 21 assists on the year while surpassing 150 career points and was the best player in the state – that fact substantiated by her being selected the Player of the Year on both the 2025 All-FCIAC Girls Ice Hockey First Team and the CHSGHA All-State First Team.
Tully led a group of six conference players who were selected to the All-FCIAC First Team and All-State First Team. She was joined both of those teams by her New Canaan teammates O’Connor and Pinkernell, Darien’s Fiorita and Gromelski, and Greenwich’s Aubrey Roth.
Darien led the way with seven players chosen to the 13-player All-FCIAC First Team and New Canaan had three.
The seven forwards on the all-conference first team were Izzy Haire, Gromelski, Kellogg and Krotee of Darien; New Canaan’s Tully and O’Connor; and Greenwich’s Roth. Haire and Krotee also made the CHSGHA All-State Second Team.
The quartet on defense included Sophie Haas and Fiorita of Darien, New Canaan’s Pinkernell, and Avery Askew from Stamford/Westhill and Staples.
The two all-conference first-team goalies were Lonergan of Darien and Trumbull/St. Joseph’s Lucy Kimberly, who was also picked to the All-State Second Team.
Last year Callahan and McCaffrey Tuttle of the Stamford/Westhill/Staples cooperative program burst onto the scene as phenomenal freshman goalies, and like Callahan, Tuttle followed up with a very good sophomore year between the pipes. Callahan and Tuttle were the two goalies on the 14-player All-FCIAC Second Team.
The five all-conference second-team players on defense were Elizabeth Toussaint-Brown of Stamford/Westhill/Staples, Amaya McNeil of Fairfield Ludlowe/Warde, New Canaan’s Marissa DelCarmine, Darien’s Sophie Beach, and Greeniwch’s Lexi Carino.
The seven forwards on the All-FCIAC Second Team were Kate Lane and Riley Malay of the Wilton/Norwalk/McMahon cooperative team, Ella Pearle and Anne Leydon of Stamford/Westhill/Staples, Sydney Micalizzi of Trumbull/St. Joseph, Scarlett Robbins of Fairfield Ludlowe/Warde, and Kelsey Gotti of Ridgefield/Danbury.
Tropsa was named Coach of the Year in the FCIAC.