If you think the East Lyme girls are coming into tonight's Class L girls basketball championship game tight- think again.
Just about 20 minutes from game time, the Vikings have been smiling and laughing as they warm up for their showdown with the Kolbe-Cathedral Cougars at Central Connecticut State University.
It's the first time an East Lyme girls basketball team will get a shot at a state championship, something that three other schools have already claimed this Saturday.
Former Tourtellotte High School head coach took his new team, Bloomfield, to a state title as it won the Class S championship. The team that took out Montville in the Class M semifinals, Avon, captured the title with a win over Morgan. The surprise of the day came in the Class LL final when Career Magnet bested the team that was playing in its hometown, New Britain, 71-66.
That Career-New Britain game, not surprisingly, also drew the largest crowd of the day. Although people are still filing in to the gym, the crowd will not be as impressive as it was for the LL final.

This is a tough time of year to be a high school senior athlete.
Take, for instance, the Montville girls basketball team Wednesday night.
"I was trying to hold it in, but I came over here (where her team was) and some of the young girls are crying and saying they're going to miss us," Montville guard Caitlin Quinn said.
That was after the Indians lost to the Avon Falcons 47-35 in a Class M girls basketball semifinal game at Norwich Free Academy. The furthest Montville had ever advanced in the girls basketball tournament.
"It's tough having them leave," Montville coach Derek Wainwright said of Quinn and Lindsay Stergio.
"I have never coached without them and, from day one, it was supposed to be a four-year process with the goal being a state title this year.I watched those kids grow from freshman, getting the (heck) beaten out of them by teams every single day. They stuck with it and they're going to leave a legacy here. This is the best girls team Montville has had."
Montville's loss leaves just one local girls basketball team in the hunt for a state championship. East Lyme will battle Kolbe Cathedral at 8 p.m. Saturday at Central Connecticut State University.

Everyone knew how many points R.J. Evans needed to reach 2,000 for his career Tuesday night but was the NFA senior forward counting?
Evans put down 14 of the 16 points that he needed in the first quarter and scored the first basket of the second quarter to reach the milestone rather quickly in a 74-49 win over Staples in the first round of the Class LL state tournament.
"I was just playing, I wasn't thinking about points or anything," Evans said. "I just came out playing and my team played did well."
"So happy," fellow guard Wes Murphy said. "He's one of my greatest friends and one of the best basketball players I have ever seen. I love playing with him."
2,000 points in a high school career may seem more commonplace now that both Evans and Stonington's Heather Buck reached that number this season. But both were the first in the history of their respective programs and both were only the second player ever to score 2,000 points in their schools. Alex Jensen reached the mark for Stonington, Krista Rappahahn for NFA.
"Tremendous accomplishment," NFA coach Neal Curland said. "Four years of hard work and he can score, there's no question about that. That's a lot of points."

Reaching 1,000 points in a career is a great achievement for any high school basketball player and is, fittingly, celebrated.
Hitting 2,000 points in a career is another thing entirely.
That's 500 points a season or about 25 points a game in a 20-game season. Some, if they're lucky enough to play for teams who qualify for post-season play might see 24 or 25 games in a season, but few achieve the milestone.
That's what makes it so special.
Stonington's Heather Buck did so earlier this season, but it looks like she will be joined by another special player on Tuesday.
Norwich Free Academy senior R.J. Evans needs only 16 points at home against Staples in a Class LL first-round state tournament game to also eclipse the 2,000 point mark.
It just goes to show how special this high school basketball season has truly been. Three future Division-I boys basketball players in the Eastern Connecticut Conference, unheard of.
The crowd at New London on Friday night to watch NFA play the Whalers for the ECC Championship- spectacular.
The end of Heather Buck's high school career- why so soon?
Hope you enjoyed it, it may be awhile before it happens again.

It was the last hurrah for Heather on Saturday night although, clearly, she didn't want it to be.
Heather Buck, the Stonington center who is bound for UConn next year, did everything she could to keep her Stonington Bears in the Class L state tournament. She scored 39 points, grabbed 13 rebounds and played defense wherever she was needed.
In the end, East Lyme just found too many weapons as the Vikings scored from where ever Buck was not present; beyond the 3-point arc, driving the back door, getting rebounds on the weak side.
Buck held back the tears afterward as she realized her storied, four-year high school career had come to an end.
But she will have plenty to look fondly back on, a state championship, 2000-plus career points and just about every award conceived.
The nice thing for those who have followed her career, they won't have to go far to continue to watch her progress as she takes her show to UConn to play for the best women's college team in the nation.
She may have been a little saddened last night, but Heather Buck has plenty to be happy about too.
Just a little aside, the state semifinal sites have been set. East Lyme will play Pomperaug at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Branford High School in Class L. Also on Tuesday, the Wheeler Lions meet Bloomfield at 6 p.m. in Manchester. On Wednesday, Montville stays close to home as it meets Avon in a Class M semifinal at 6 p.m. at NFA.

Unstoppable.
It's a good word to describe New London center Allan Chaney on Wednesday night as he and his teammates took all of the fight out of Killingly early and ran away with the Eastern Connecticut Conference semifinal between the two, 85-53.
If third-seeded Killingly had any thoughts of upsetting the second-seed and host, those hopes were quickly dashed by Chaney's play. The Redmen had no one to guard the six-foot-eight-inch center and eventually were forced to put their own future Division-I player, Shane Gibson, on him.
Gibson blocked a couple of Chaney's shots to no avail. Chaney simply picked the ball back up on both occasions and stuffed it home. That's what a six-inch height advantage will do for you and how a few hang-on-the-rim slam dunks can take the will away from an opponent.
The Whalers move on to meet NFA in the final Friday night on New London's court. The Wildcats won it last season, and do have a couple of six-foot-six-inch pivot players to go after Chaney with. The odds-on favorite, however, New London.

Have you ever felt like the air just went out of a gym?
That's what it was like Tuesday night at Norwich Free Academy.
After a fun and entertaining girls basketball championship game on Friday night with a large crowd and two good teams, NFA and Stonington, on the floor. Tuesday night seemed to have all the thrill of a midseason game in January.
It really wasn't that way, of course, as we're already into the win or go home portion of the season. NFA started off a little slow but gradually imposed its will upon Newington and walked away with a 74-50 win.
The next task won't be so easy as the Wildcats have to play the Golden Hurricanes of New Britain on the road on Thursday. New Britain, the two-time defending state champ, had a rough start to the season, but are right back near the top of the state poll and feature one of the best players in the state.
Tonight, you might want to check out the Eastern Connecticut Conference semifinals in New London, three future Division-I players and a future Division-II player all on the floor as fourth-seed Stonington meets top-seed NFA in the first game at 6 p.m. The second at 7:30 pits third-seeded Killingly against No.2 seed and host, New London.