johnnash@wiltonvillager.com

WILTON — It was a statistic that had all that blunt trauma of getting hit in the thumb by a hammer. Or, perhaps more suitable in this case, catching a lacrosse ball to the bare forehead.

In its previous two games, the Wilton High School girls lacrosse defensive unit had given up 28 goals — 14 in a one-goal loss to New Canaan and just as many in a double overtime tie with Greenwich.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Warriors defense decided, "No more."

Wilton grabbed a 4-0 lead in the opening minutes as was still up 8-2 less than 10 minutes into the game.

Once staked to its big lead, the rest was up to Wilton's defense.

Leslie Stebbins, Laura Johnson, Kyra Hansson, Chandler Richards and Kelly Mendola rotated throughout the Warriors defensive end of the field, limiting Hand's scoring chances in front of senior goaltender Kate Gunts (4 saves) and freshman Maddie Kratz (2 saves).

"The defense played really great, I thought," said Gunts, who had four saves.

Pre-game focus on raising its defensive game paid off in a big way.

"We worked on being more aggressive and challenging the attacker," added Wilton co-coach Cindy Wiseman. "We didn't want to wait and see what they were going to do, but take charge of the situation."

Wilton had actually built up an 18-4 lead in the game, before giving up four goals down the stretch once the contest had been decided.

Kacie Johnson had scored Wilton's first and third goals and assisted on the fourth tally of the game as the Warriors grabbed a 4-0 lead in the first five minutes of play.

"She was all over the field," said Wilton co-coach Ciara Thurlow. "She's been working on becoming more of a complete player and we asked her to work really hard on getting free today and she did."

Even after Hand scored back-to-back goals to cut the lead in half, Johnson scored two more goals in a four-goal Wilton spurt over the next 2:46 of the game to make it 8-2.

"I just feel like our passing in the midfield helped us out a lot today," said Johnson. "That was one of our big focuses. We got it up the field and there were a lot of four-on-threes, five-on-threes, whatever."

Johnson closed out the first half by setting up goals by teammates Paige Powell and Molly Christian as the Warriors took an 11-3 lead at halftime.

"Wilton has a very good team," said Hand head coach Jim Flanagan, whose saw his Tigers' nine-game winning streak come to an abrupt end. "They're a good passing team and they're great in transition. The score pretty much tells you that."

In addition to Kacie Johnson's big offensive out-put, the Warriors got plenty of offensive from other players, too.

Lindsay Harkness scored three goals and had an assist while Amy Drummond and Alexi Farmakis each had two goals and two assists. Chelsea Helms added two goals while Powell and Christian had single goals and Brooke Flanagan had one assist.

Shawn Flanagan led Hand with three goals while Becca Church added two more.

Goaltender Nicole Niehisbach made 10 saves.

Wilton, which is now 8-2-1, travels to Brien McMahon on Saturday to face the 8-2 upstart Senators. Game time is 12:30 p.m.