Last week, Hand was taught a little something about championship style lacrosse by the master, Darien.

"This is their championship, they are the team of Connecticut lacrosse," said Hand girls' lacrosse Coach Kevin Siedlecki. "We had a chance to go get them and I'm proud of our effort. We played well, but they just out-matched us at the midfield."

The Tigers and the Blue Wave decided the 2011 Class M girls' lacrosse state champion on June 11 at Bunnell High School in Stratford. Darien (12-6) played less like its seed, No. 13, and more like Hand's No. 2 in a 15-5 title-clinching victory. The championship is the Blue Wave's fourth in the last five years, while Hand was in the final for the first time in program history. The Tigers (17-3) were attempting to become the first team from the Southern Connecticut Conference to win the Class M title. No team outside of the Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference has ever won the Class M title, formally Division I.

Despite Hand entering the tournament as a much higher seed, Darien's championship pedigree quickly shined through. After a Julia Miller goal with 18:46 to play in the first half gave the Tigers a 1-0 lead, the Blue Wave offense roared to life. Darien scored four unanswered goals-three in a 58-second stretch-building a 4-1 lead it would not relinquish the entire game.

"That [four-goal stretch] was a big part, but we came right back and we scored the next two off of that," said Siedlecki. "It is about possession and the draw and I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I guarantee they killed us on the draw."

The Blue Wave won eight of the 10 first-half draws, but the Tigers did have a response for the early onslaught. Hand seniors Marykate McNulty and Hannah Morgan each scored, stopping the Darien run and bringing the score to 4-3 with 7:58 to play in the first half.

"When it was 4-3 I think they were a little scared. They started stalling with about eight minutes left," said Siedlecki. "We had to go out and get after them and we let in some open stuff because we had to go out and do that."

The Blue Wave scored the half's final three goals, coming in transition and off Tiger turnovers in their own defensive zone.

"I think their success really came from it being a fast-paced game. The fast breaks really killed us and it was hard to keep up with them," said Hand junior goaltender Christy Forrest.

Darien's lead swelled in the opening eight minutes of the second half to 10-3, forcing the Tigers to further extend the pressure.

"We got really aggressive. We took a lot of risks that we knew we had to if we were going to win this game," Siedlecki said.

Hand trimmed the Darien advantage to 11-5 with a free-position goal by McNulty with 10:28 remaining, but that was all the offense the Tigers could muster on this day as McNulty had two goals for Hand while Morgan, Miller, and Catherine Chatillon also scored in the game.

The Blue Wave scored four more times over the course of the final seven minutes, putting a bow on yet another championship for them. The score could have quite easily been more lopsided had it not been for the 10 saves made by Forrest in net.

"I told Christy, 'we still have a chance if you are in the cage,' and we have her for another year," said Siedlecki. "As long as she is that last line of defense we always have a chance. She is going to make plays."

Despite an impressive win total and success in both the SCC and state tournaments, Hand fell short in both of its opportunities to bring home titles this season. The Tigers gave away a second-half lead to Cheshire in the SCC final, in addition to the loss to Darien. Yet Siedlecki is still proud of what this team, especially its seniors, accomplished.

"This group [of seniors] is my first team. This team is the first group I truly brought through by myself," he said. "What they have done to buy into everything we try to do, we put in the new offense we ran today on Thursday. They just decided, 'ok this is what we are going to do, let's go do it.' It worked, we just weren't patient enough. But they had faith in what I was trying to do and they always had faith in each other."