Bucknell commit Hunter Pallai scored two goals and pocketed two assists.
So did the Holy Cross-bound Matt Reed. Grey Wildman — one of the top ‘28s in the region — went for a hat trick. Charlie Clark (UVM) found the back of the net, while Max Hill (Yale), Rogan Lowe (Colgate), Cole Campisi (Denver) and Brady Mazabras (Lafayette) recorded tallies.
Jack Crowell, who is committed to Princeton, made eight saves for New Canaan. But led by Penn commit and tenacious defender Nate Maurillo — who was named game MVP — Staples pulled out a thrilling 10-9 win.
This wasn’t an all-star game. It was the FCIAC championship showdown, the culmination of one of the best public high school leagues in the country. Yet there were Division 1 commits everywhere.
Welcome to the Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference (FCIAC).
“I think there are so many kids that are growing up in these towns that are dreaming about playing for these high school programs in this conference and playing in front of their whole town,” said Staples head coach Will Koshansky.
The victory — staged in front of a packed crowd at Wilton High in May — marked a second conference championship in the last three years for Staples, the public high school based in Wilton, Conn. The Wreckers are undoubtedly one of the top public programs in the country. Staples captured Class LL state titles in 2022, 2023 and 2025 and have sent their stars to Division 1 programs in droves over the last few years.
Their performance in the FCIAC championship game was only the tip of the iceberg.
Pallai, Clark, Hill and Maurillo headlined Staples’ contingent of Division 1-bound talent. Pallai, Hill and Maurillo will be seniors this spring, while Clark will embark on his collegiate career as a freshman.
They are only the latest installment of high-end talent to develop at Staples. Their 2025 class was loaded, led by Adam Udell (Michigan) and Josh Marcus (UNC). The program sent Ben Burmeister to Notre Dame in 2024. The list goes on.
This is ultimately what turned my attention to the FCIAC. The sheer amount of Division 1 commits to some of the most renowned programs in the nation was striking.
This only opened my eyes to much, much more.
“First and foremost, as part of the FCIAC, our conference is arguably the top public school conference in the country,” Koshansky said. “Especially when you look at the top handful of schools in our conference.”
The 14-school conference nestled in the heart of Fairfield County has always been a hotbed for lacrosse talent. In just the West Division alone — including New Canaan, Darien, Wilton, Staples, Ridgefield and Greenwich — there were 16 Division 1 commits in the class of 2026.
READ MORE: Boys lacrosse recruiting: live updates from start of 2026 commitment season
The youth programs reflect that sentiment. At Staples, there are just under 100 student-athletes in the high school program across three teams. Of the 12 coaches spread throughout those teams, eight of them coach a youth team in town during the spring.
Over at New Canaan — the squad Staples edged for the conference crown — the same is true. New Canaan head coach Chip Buzzeo has been a member of the youth lacrosse board in town since 2009. He said there are close to 1,000 kids in the program that fosters talent from kindergarten through eighth grade.
The rivalries are instilled at a young age.
“And that is really important,” Buzzeo said. “Because these kids start competing as early as third or fourth grade…That’s the first time you get exposure to New Canaan playing Darien, or New Canaan playing (Staples) or New Canaan playing Wilton.”
New Canaan — another FCIAC team loaded with Division 1 talent — fell to Darien in the CIAC Class LL finals.
Like Staples, players like Reed, Lowe, Campisi, Crowell and Mazabras are just a glimpse at the program’s standing as a Division 1 factory. Finn Roeder is another ‘26 committed to Holy Cross, and ‘26 goalie Cameron Lyden will play at Michigan. And ‘28s like Grey Wildman and Andrew Hojnacki are expected to gain interest from high-end schools during the new recruiting window.
Players in the youth ranks see these stars at the high school level. They idolize them.
“He’s like a celebrity (and a) Beatle when he walks around town,” Buzzeo said of Wildman, who broke school records this season in goals (78) and points (111). “People know who he is. People whisper about him when they see him walking by. There’s going to be someone just like him five years from now. I think these kids look up to the players.”
The youth organizations in the area are key. But both Koshansky and Buzzeo — who are both managing directors at Eclipse Lacrosse — stressed the importance of the club landscape and its impact on player development.
So it should be no surprise that the entirety of New Canaan’s commits in the classes of 2027 and 2026 play for Eclipse in the club season. Most of Staples’ top players do, too.
And Eclipse is one of the few clubs in the country that doesn’t allow its youth players to compete in tournaments in the fall, encouraging multi-sport athletes in an athletic season where high overlap is common.
For instance, Cheshire standout Matthew Jeffery was the No. 1 recruit in the 2024 class. Not only did he land a commitment to Notre Dame, but he walked on the football team and is now part of the receiving core.
“Why? Because he’s one of the greatest athletes I’ve ever come across,” Buzzeo said.
While Cheshire isn't an FCIAC member school, that very philosophy echoed by Eclipse is contagious. And combined with the steadiness of the youth programs and a bevy of community support, the FCIAC is the closest public school league to prep-proof in the area.
There is a history of players leaving the FCIAC for prep. But not for the reason you might expect.
“We were the better programs for many years,” said longtime Darien head coach Jeff Brameier, who has coached for 43 seasons and has amassed over 700 wins. “I think kids that left to go to private school for a lot of years were deciding to go to private school because they might not play at Darien or they might not play in New Canaan.”
It wasn’t until the reclassifying concept, Brameier said, that accelerated the movement to prep schools in the area. With prep, players have the opportunity to repeat a grade and will oftentimes leave their public school after sophomore year when transferring. Brameier said this process has only accelerated the prep movement, especially in the last five years.
READ MORE: How ‘29s should prepare for college recruiting window a year from now
But there is still an aura that comes with public school athletics. Brameier has experienced it. He grew up in Darien and played sports there. He has dedicated his entire life to supporting the public school student-athlete.
“I believe in public school education and the town communities,” Brameier said. “Winning a state championship last year again, you can’t replace that. Those kids will be friends for the rest of their lives.”
Darien has won a lot of them, including their latest this past spring. The win over New Canaan marked the program’s first title since 2019 and its 15th in history.
The college commitments have piled up, too. Darien’s class of 2026 featured stars like Wes Scallen (High Point), Ben Bilodeau (Georgetown), Nathan Kalvaitis (Air Force), Chase Lane (Holy Cross), Jack Marisca (Loyola), Max McBride (Lafayette), Ryan McGahren (Mercer) and Ryan Thurlow (Villanova). Look for ‘28 Bruce Hopkins to get attention in the recruiting window, too.
All this isn’t to imply that the FCIAC doesn’t lose talent to prep, either. Some of the nation’s best prep programs are home to the area. Take a school like Brunswick, for example, where seven of its commits in the class of 2026 hail from towns in Fairfield County.
But the FCIAC has still been able to flourish.
“It’s definitely something that we take pride in,” Koshansky said. “It’s kind of a situation where you start working with these kids at a young age, and it’s such a building process…We know these kids really from like third, fourth, fifth grade on.”
Koshansky was a 2012 graduate at Penn and was drafted by the Boston Cannons that year. He would play seven seasons in Major League Lacrosse between the Chesapeake Bayhawks and Rochester Rattlers. Before coming to Staples in 2019, he spent six years as an assistant at New Canaan.
Buzzeo arrived at New Canaan in 2013 and played college lacrosse at Princeton, where he was part of two national championship teams. Buzzeo was a two-sport star at New Canaan in high school. Brameier’s roots are intertwined with Darien. So is Bobby Lutz, who spent eight years as an assistant coach under Brameier and seven years on the staff at New Canaan before taking over at the helm at Greenwich, where he’s been for eight years.
“The coaches that we have, we’ve all kind of been around,” Lutz said. “You look at those top-tier teams…You have really good coaching working with a lot of these kids.”
Welcome to the FCIAC.
“I just think that we’re all really invested in this.”
