Darien dominates Warde

It's safe to say that Darien quarterback Henry Baldwin and receiver Nick Lombardo are on the same page early in the season.

Including two touchdown hookups on Saturday at home against Fairfield Warde, Baldwin has now found Lombardo for five touchdown passes in the first two weeks.

None of the five scores have been for fewer than 33 yards, and a would-be sixth touchdown bomb was called back due to a holding penalty on Saturday.

"They're clicking very well. Nick is a track runner, and you can tell. He's a great weapon and Henry was spot on today," Darien coach Rob Trifone said. "Offensively, we played extremely well all day; defensively, not so well. We let them off the hook on third-and-long and fourth-and-long. You can't do that."

But Darien's 44-21 victory in its home opener against Warde was anything but a two-man show.

Darien led from coast to coast and scored on five of its first six possessions on its way to a 30-0 lead.

The Blue Wave claimed a 3-0 lead on the game's opening drive on a 28-yard field goal by Daly Hebert.

After the teams traded punts, Darien's John Reed picked off Warde's Max Garrett at the 50 and returned it to the Warde 8.

Two plays later, Lombardo carried the ball six yards into the end zone for a 10-0 lead.

On its next possession Darien drove 75 yards on eight plays, capped by Baldwin's 26-yard TD pass to Griffin Ross for a 17-0 lead at the start of the second quarter.

Baldwin followed with scoring bombs of 59 and 61 yards to Lombardo to put the Blue Wave up 30-0 in the second quarter.

Warde was hurt by the big play in its opener, too, and the players heard about it after the Darien game.

"I told them I'm not pleased," Warde coach Duncan Della Volpe said. "We made some mistakes early on that a good team can't make against Darien, let alone us. I told them that if we're going to do this in the game, I don't even know why we bother to practice during the week. There are big issues that are causing big plays, and we're not in the game."

Ludlowe got on the board when T.J. Gallagher capped a 16-play, 75-yard drive with a two-yard plunge with 35 seconds remaining in the half to close to 30-7.

Darien's Will Lochtefeld recovered a Warde fumble on the five-yard line to start the second half, and a two-yard run by Christian Bognar boosted Darien's lead to 37-7.

Garrett scored on a 36-yard scramble to bring Warde to within 37-14, but Darien countered with another big play when Jackson Whiting took a screen pass 67 yards for a touchdown.

An 11-yard touchdown pass from Garrett to Ryan Jacob on a jump ball with 7:28 remaining closed out the scoring at 44-21.

For Warde, which suffered a heartbreaking 33-28 loss to start the season at Brien McMahon, there weren't a whole lot of positives to take out of its Week 2 defeat.

"This one's over. Honestly, I don't see any positives here except that we didn't lose anybody (to injury) for good," Della Volpe said.

"Now it's on me. I've got to find a way to make this group more than just competitive; we've got to win games."

jchik@bcnnew.com

Darien 44, Warde 21

WARDE 0 7 7 7--21

DARIEN 10 20 14 0--44

D--Daly Hebert, 28 field goal

D--Nick Lombardo, 6 run (Hebert kick)

D--Griffin Ross, 26 pass from Henry Baldwin (Hebert kick)

D--Lombardo, 59 pass from Baldwin (Hebert kick)

D--Lombardo, 61 pass from Baldwin (PAT no good)

FW--T.J. Gallagher, 2 run (Connor McGuinness kick)

D--Christian Bognar 2 run (Hebert kick)

FW--Max Garrett, 36 run (McGuinness kick)

D--Jackson Whiting, 67 pass from Baldwin (Hebert kick)

FW--Ryan Jacob, 17 pass from Garrett (McGuinness kick)

Records: Darien 2-0; Fairfield Warde 0-2