NFA, NL to share spotlight again

Waterford - They are by no means a finished product, still with flaws and warts for all to see.

But Norwich Free Academy is playing as well as it has all season at just the right time.

The sixth-seeded Wildcats advanced to the Eastern Connecticut Conference boys' basketball tournament championship game with a 55-39 win over No. 2 East Lyme at Waterford High School on Wednesday.

For the third straight year, they'll play top-seeded New London, which easily dispatched upstart St. Bernard in the other semifinal, 96-34. Tip-off is 7 p.m. on Friday.

"Right now, we're playing the last few games with no sense of fear," NFA coach Neal Curland said. "We've come a long way and it seems like we get better every game. It's a process that's been going on a long, long time."

NFA (11-12) was 2-9 at one point and was on the verge of chalking it up as a lost season.

"I was 2-9, too," Curland said. "The kids weren't alone in that. It was all of us."

But the Wildcats have won nine of their last 12 games to help right the ship.

On Wednesday, senior Trevor Bundy, the only NFA player who played significant minutes last season, had 18 points and 15 rebounds, while Jesus Rodriguez added 10 points and Shawn Morrello and Chad Vincent helped hold East Lyme's Jon Nazarko to a season-low two points.

"This is a group of kids that came into this season with no expectations," Curland said. "We played 11 kids (Wednesday) and every one of them helped and did their own little thing."

NFA, which lost two close games to the Vikings (19-3) during the regular season, trailed by one heading into the second quarter and slowly built the lead up to 10 just before halftime.

"The second quarter, to me, was a very long quarter," a befuddled East Lyme coach Dan Spellman said. "It's quite obvious to me that I did not have the kids ready to play and that's on me. We picked a crappy time to play our worst game of the year. The effort and competitiveness should have been a lot better."

In the third, the Vikings closed the gap to six with some fullcourt pressure, but Vincent hit a jumper and a 3-pointer and Bundy had a put-back dunk with four minutes left in to go up 16 and put the finishing touches on the victory.

"Everyone doubted NFA this year," Bundy said. "Everyone stopped coming to the games and thought our season was done, but it's not. We've got many more games left."

Dan Majchrzak led East Lyme with a game-high 25 points, but nobody else scored more than three.

New London (21-1), the fourth-ranked team in the state, won its 21st straight game handily.

"We wanted to come out and establish ourselves early in the game by playing hard and playing good, solid defense and we were able to do that," New London coach Craig Parker said.

Torin Childs-Harris led five players in double figure scoring with 22 points for the Whalers, while Kris Dunn added 16 and Jaquan Morton scored 13. Johnson Benjamin and Voghens Larrieux scored 10 apiece.

St. Bernard, which was led by Jared Kobyluck's 13 points, only had to play New London once this season after years spent playing twice while they were both in the ECC Small Division. The Whalers moved up to the Medium this season.

"We used to have to go through this mayhem twice a year," St. Bernard coach Tim Payne said.

"I think they could have scored 100 in the first half if they wanted to."

o.poole@theday.com