Friday night inside the Darien Ice House, the 2022-23 Darien Girls Ice Hockey team played in their home opener as they welcomed the Greenwich Cardinals for the second game of the season.

On Monday, Darien traveled to West Hartford for a showdown with the Hall/Conard Warchiefs where the Wave won 7-1, opening their season on a high note.

Last year when the Cards and Wave met at DIH it was all Greenwich, with the Cards jumping out to a 3-0 lead in the first five minutes and taking down Darien 4-1 late in the season.

Friday Night was a different tale. Just three minutes in, Darien had a majority of the offense when eventually junior Kate Brown sent a shot on net that Cards’ goaltender Emma Kunschner lost in the air and watched as it trickled over the goal line for the Darien score.

Darien would keep the offense rolling as in the 14th minute of the opening period, Darien was faced with the power play. Kelsey Brown grabbed the rebound and sent the shot over the right shoulder of Kunschner and into the back of the net for the Darien power-play score.

2-0 Darien led entering the 1st intermission huddles. Greenwich struggled with the offense and only faced a couple of opportunities but were all turned away by the senior net miner for Darien, Katherine Kahn. Kahn made seven saves in the win Friday Night, including her first shutout of the new campaign.

A penalty would go against Morgan Massey to open the second period giving the Cardinals a power play look. But the Darien penalty kill unit was too good, with Kelsey Brown streaking down the ice with the puck. Brown would shoot the puck and be stopped by Kunschner, but the rebound found the stick of a diving Natalie Beach sending it past the goal line for the score. 3-0 Wave on the short-handed goal.

The defenses would continue to shine as this would remain 3-0 for the next twenty minutes of play.

Greenwich had a couple of looks, with Sophie Roth and Peyton Jelinek both seeing looks but hitting the crossbar on the shot. And Emma Kunschner would continue to fen away shots making a remarkable 25 saves in this one.

The Wave would strike again with just 2:13 left to play. Natalie Beach received the pass off the board, sniped a shot over the shoulder of Kunschner, and scored her second of the night. 4-0 Darien as Natalie scored her 5th goal on the young season.

The Wave would watch the clock run down as they celebrated victorious Friday Night with the shutout win of Greenwich. A big accomplishment for Katherine Kahn, getting the first clean sheet in the books and the offense continued to produce.

Eleven goals in the first two games are what Darien managed to score, and they have a long season ahead of them as they hope to return to the story land, something the program has not seen in 3 years.

The Wave moves to 2-0 on the season and 1-0 in FCIAC. Darien hosts Simsbury on Saturday in an out-of-conference clash to continue their season.

DARIEN 4,

GREENWICH 0

GREENWICH 0 0 0 — 0

DARIEN 2 1 1 — 4

Goals: D – Kate Brown, Kelsey Brown (PP), Natalie Beach (SH), Natalie Beach.

Goalkeepers: G – Emma Kunschner 25 saves; D – Katherine Kahn 7 saves.

Records: Greenwich 0-2-0 (0-1-0 FCIAC); Darien 2-0-0 (1-0-0 FCIAC)