FAIRFIELD — Any other result would have been the shock. Wilton, boys lacrosse power forever in Connecticut, won 12-5 Tuesday night at Fairfield Ludlowe's Taft Field. The Falcons may have fallen (again) below .500. It's the way they lost to the lacrosse perennial that had coach Chris Parisi at least a little optimistic.

"We were pounded by Greenwich (14-0). We were pounded by Darien (16-2)," Parisi said. "I think we had our character tested. I really have no explanation for today except the attitude all year has been 'all in.' You really saw it in the way every kid put it out there, every coach coached."

Parisi pointed to 52 ground balls for Fairfield Ludlowe (5-6, 4-6 FCIAC) as a statistic that represented the Falcons' effort, more than a 34-24 shots advantage for the Warriors, more than Wilton's five-goal second quarter that took control of the game. The start belonged to Ludlowe, even though the Warriors (7-5, 7-4) scored first. The Falcons took the game's first three shots. Scoring chances bounced out of pockets. When Josh Barnett tied it with 4:21 left in the first quarter, Wilton took a timeout, needing to regroup. "We got a lot of good shots," Barnett said. "In the end, they didn't end up adding up."

Wilton took the lead again, but Ben Stearns tied it with 15 seconds to go in the first. "I don't know if I expected to be in it for long in a slugfest with Wilton," Parisi said. "They've played some tough competition, (New York teams) St. Anthony's last

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weekend, Yorktown this weekend."

Wilton goalie James Fuller, a junior, kept the Falcons down with five first-quarter saves and four more in the second. "I said, can we graduate him a year early? Can he take some extra classes?" Parisi said. "I thought we took some good shots. It wasn't a matter of just throwing it at the net. We tried him high. We tried him low."

Fuller didn't allow a goal in the third quarter, nor in the first five minutes of the fourth, after which Jon Sherman came in to mop up.

Ludlowe goalie Dan O'Rourke was no slouch at the other end, though. Facing a barrage in the second and fourth quarters, he made more saves than he allowed goals. "Danny O over here stepped up really big," Barnett said. "He was amazing. We've got to give most of the credit to him."

The Falcons are on their first two-game losing streak, which followed their first two-game winning streak, which came after nine games of lose-one, win-one, lose-one. "It's the FCIAC roller coaster," Parisi said. "Year in, year out, we always seem to be in the middle of the pack. It's really hard to get in synch and find the identity of your team."

WILTON 2 5 2 3 — 12
FAIRFIELD LUDLOWE 2 1 0 2 — 5

Records: Wilton 7-5, 7-4 FCIAC; Fairfield Ludlowe 5-6, 4-6.
Goals: W — Mike Francia 5, Peter McMahon 2, Harrison Hess 2, Ray McSpirit 2, Peter Johnson; FL — Josh Barnett 2, Ben Stearns 2, Connor Charles
Assists: W — McMahon 5, Vinnie Cannon 2, Francia, Joe Reardon; FL — Sam Canella 2, Tyler Cullinan
Goalies: W — James Fuller (12 saves), Jon Sherman (0); FL — Dan O'Rourke (15)
Shots: W — 34; FL — 24.