ECC championships: Saints ready for Vikes

St. Bernard had its work cut out for them against Waterford.
Now, it gets to go into the Eastern Connecticut Conference championship match against an even hotter club, East Lyme.
That's fine with the Saints.
The top seed in the ECC tournament survived an 11-10 overtime thriller with the Lancers on a very hot Wednesday afternoon in Uncasville, but were already thinking ahead to the title game on Friday night in East Lyme.The Vikings advanced with a 9-6 win over Norwich Free Academy also on Wednesday.
"This will be the second time playing East Lyme this season and we know that they're going to be hungry, just as hungry as we are for them, because we're (both) looking for the ECC championship this year," Saint wing Catherine Brown said.
What she means is, the motivation is clearly there for both.
The Saints still clearly remember their 10-8 loss to the Vikings in last year's ECC championship game and the Vikings, winners of 11 straight remember their last loss this season; it was to St. Bernard by a score of 12-9.
"I'm so excited," St. Bernard senior Chelsea Phillips said of Friday's showdown with the Vikings at 7 p.m.
The key for taking on a club like the Vikings, according to Phillips, is just keeping their composure.
"I think we just have to settle down, make sure we have possession of the ball," Phillips said. "We just have to slow it down on offense, make sure we make good passes and if we play like we can, we'll be OK."
St. Bernard coach Tonya Acosta admitted she would have probably liked to have played NFA in the title game for only one reason, the Wildcats had beaten the Saints already this season and it would have been a chance to avenge that loss. But she agrees with Phillips when it comes to the key for the Saints against the Vikings.
"I think we just have to play our game," Acosta said. "We have a way we play and we don't really change it up for a team. It's not like we focus on one or two players, we play our game 100 percent and we let (the opponent) conform to us."
The East Lyme-St. Bernard championship is just one of five ECC title tilts scheduled for Friday.
The girls tennis title is slated to be decided some time after 3 p.m. on Friday afternoon in Stonington.
The ECC boys lacrosse title game between East Lyme and Ledyard will be played at 5 p.m. in East Lyme, followed by the girls title match.
The ECC baseball championship between second-seeded East Lyme and No. 8 New London will be played at Dodd Stadium on Friday night at 7 p.m. and just up the road a bit, also at 7 p.m., the ECC softball championship will be decided at Griswold High School.
The softball quarterfinals and semifinals will be played today with the quarterfinals starting at 4 p.m. in Griswold (two games on their two fields), East Lyme and Waterford. The winners then meet at 7 p.m. in East Lyme and on the main Griswold softball field to decide who gets into tomorrow night's finale.
The ECC golf championship will also be decided today at the Quinnatissett Country Club in Thompson with the first golfers teeing off at 12:30 p.m. Woodstock, the host team, is the favorite to win the team title with Killingly's Fletcher Babcock and Woodstock's Cody Semmelrock battling for the individual crown.