In a back-and-forth lacrosse battle, Sacred Heart Greenwich’s Varsity A team certainly gave Darien, the No. 1 ranked team in the Nike/USA Lacrosse Girls High School Top 25 Rankings, all it could handle on Tuesday.

The non-conference matchup between the lacrosse powers saw both teams hold the lead and in the end, it was Darien that pulled out the win.

Scoring on an 8-meter shot with only eight seconds remaining in the second half, Darien edged host Sacred Heart Greenwich, 9-8.

“It was a great game,” Sacred Heart coach Sharon Robinson said. “The girls all played hard. Unfortunately, it didn’t go our way at the end.”

The loss was the first of the season for the Tigers, whose record is 5-1. The Blue Wave improved to 2-0. Senior attack Kelly Haggerty recorded a hat trick to pace Sacred Heart’s scoring effort.

Karina Sethi, a senior attack, scored two goals, while junior midfielder Kaitlin Robinson added two goals and one assist for the Tigers.

Junior midfielder Maggie Bacigalupo scored one goal, while her sister Charley, a sophomore midfielder had one assist. Payton Sfreddo, a junior midfielder, also assisted on a goal for SHG.

Darien entered halftime with a 5-2 lead. Sacred Heart rallied to tie the score at 5-5, then proceeded to take a 7-5 advantage. The Blue Wave tallied two straight goals to even the score at 7-7.

The Tigers went ahead, 8-7, but the Blue Wave scored the equalizer with 2:30 left to play in the second half.

Junior Kelly Holmes scored three goals, while senior Chloe Humphrey tallied twice for Darien. Senior Jillian Vaught registered two goals and two assists for the Blue Wave, who received one goal and two assists from junior Sadie Stafford and one goal from Colette Quinn.

Sacred Heart opened the season with victories against The Hill School, Nobles and Greenough, School of the Holy Chill, Penn Charter and Cold Spring Harbor.

The Tigers will be in action again on April 12 at Westminster.