Cold, but happy.
The East Lyme Vikings are showing signs they will be one of those teams that will have to be reckoned with this spring when it comes to high school softball in the Eastern Connecticut Conference.
The Vikings, who dropped their first two games, have found their hitting stroke as evidenced by their 11-1 win in Montville on a chilly Friday afternoon.
Add to thata senior pitcher in Rachelle Fecteau who limited the Indians to one hit and an experienced coach and you have the makings of a contender.
"(East Lyme coach) Judy (Deeb) always has a well thought out program and kids who can do the job," Montville coach Allison Delaney said. "You can never count East Lyme out- goodness, no."
The nice thing for Deeb, it's also a team that she's having fun with.
The Vikings were all smiles on Friday afternoon, joking around with one another and their coach in the dugout as the game went along.
Of course, as Deeb pointed out, it's a lot easier to do that when you scored eight runs in the first two innings.

Its about time, it fijnally felt like baseball weather at Montville H igh School on Thursday afternoon.
People actually out in shirt sleeves and shorts, wearing sun glasses, and watching a baseball game.
Gotta love it!
Unfortunately, it's not going to last as wein New England all know.
Teams were already in the process of moving games from Saturday to Friday to try and escape the rain that Mother Nature is predicted to throw our way on Saturday.
Montville, who walked away with the 4-3 victory over Norwich Free ACcademy on Thursday, moved the scheduled game with East Lyme to Friday to try and beat the anticipated weather as did Putnam and Ledyard.
The Indians will come into Friday's game with a good feeling about themselves as they played well, especially defensively, against the Wildcats.
Tyler Seeley, who was playing in just his second varsity baseball game, made a huge play for the Indians to save a run in the fifth inning.
The question for Montville, as with many teams this time of year, when will its offense make an appearance. The Indians scored five runs in a win over Bacon Academy in their opener and just four runs against NFA. Montville also mustered just three hits against the Wildcats.

To every good thing, must come an end.
The Griswold Wolverines have found that out this season as they no longer have someone named Arremony in the circle and it hasn't been an easy adjustment.
Griswold saw its record slip to 1-2 Wednesday afternoon as Alicja Wojtkiewicz pitched well, but ran into trouble after the fifth inning and Plainfield took advantage to score the 3-2 win.
Griswold coach Rick Arremony doesn't want to use the term rebuilding, but the Wolverines have some work to do.
Wojtkewicz is normally an infielder but has been pressed into service pitching for Griswold. The rest of the Wolverines, meanwhile, are trying to find a new identity.
Arremony, himself, admits to being a little torn this season. Hiis daughter, Jessica, now plays for UConn and his coaching inhibits his ability to go and see her play.
Still, when the state tournament rolls around, expect the Wolverines to make some noise.

Here we go again.
After a brief two-week break, high school sports is back..
The thing about the spring season, however, is that while it may be the busiest in terms of the number of different sports going on, it's also the shortest.
On Wednesday, we embark on a brief two-month run that will see upwards of 50 sporting events per day at times on the high school calendar (more with rain outs).
High School baseball and softball play threee games per week in most instances, as do the tennis teams. Don't forget lacrosse, track and field, golf and even boys volleyball.
As we begin the new season, the high school page in the Norwich Bulletin will returrn with one change. All of the linescores will now appear on page C4.
Look for our seasonal notebooks to return as well with softball and baseball notebooks running on Mondays and other sports throughout the week.
Just a couple of other notes, look for our Connecticut Defenders preview on Thursday as the Defenders open their season at Dodd Stadium on Thursday night. Our local high school previews also continue with boys lacrosse Wednesday and girls lacrosse on Thursday followed by track and field and tennis.

If there's one thing Bolton-Coventry-Lyman didn't want to do, it was fall behind early.
That's exactly the situation the Whalers find themselves in, however, after one period of play in the Division III hockey state championship at the Ingalls Rink at Yale University in New Haven on this Saturday.
The Whalers were a man down late in the first period and Rockville-Manchester made them pay for the mistake. Sean Stoneman found Richard Bidwell coming down the center of the ice, slipped a pass to the senior, and Bidwell beat B-C-L goalie Shane Hickey from about 15-feet out to give RMU the 1-0 lead.
B-C-L was the early aggressor but "Man-ville" took control late in the period. B-C-L's Tim Lebreux went down after getting hit in the left thigh but left the ice under his own power. He has come out on the ice to start the second period.

It was an early wake up call for the Bolton-Coventry-Lyman Whalers hockey team on this Saturday morning.
But it came with much anticipation.
The Whalers will be playing in their first Division III state championship game at the Ingalls Rink on the campus of Yale University at 11 a.m.
On the other side of the ice, the team that shares the same home rink with the Whalers, Rockville-Manchester United.
The two teams have split the two-game regular season games with Rockville-Manchester winning 3-2 in overtime and the Whalers taking a 2-0 win in the rematch.
This one, however, is for much larger stakes.
As far as early crowd indications are concerned at the always loud Ingalls Rink, Rockville-Manchester's student section is already here in force and asking across the ice where the B-C-L fans are.
You get the idea that they are in route.

The last of the area's future Division-I college basketball players has joined Killingly's Shane Gibson and NFA's R.J. Evans on the sidelines.
New London's Allan Chaney and his Whalers teammates found the end of the road in New Haven Tuesday night as Maloney of Meriden downed them in the Class L semifinals, 72-50.
To a man, including coach Craig Parker, the Whalers felt they were outworked by Maloney. That the Spartans just wanted it more as evidenced by their work off the boards and a tremendous third-quarter run that, essentially, put the game away.
The 6-foot, 8-inch Chaney finished with 28 points and left the high school game with a promise for his new coach, the University of Florida's Billy Donovan.
"There are things that are going to come out of my game next year that I guarantee you, people have never seen," Chaney said. "That's how hard I'm going to work."
That statement doesn't surprise New London senior Eli Braboy.
"I will see him next year on the TV, but that's my big man," Braboy said. "I wish him the best of luck wherever he goes, whatever he does."
That's a sentiment that will be echoed by many.
Tonight, the last team from the area that has a chance to make a state championship game, Stonington, is on the court. The Bears take on the Hartford Public Owls at 7 p.m. at Eastern Connecticut State University in a Class M semifinal.