Here is the magic formula that resulted in East Lyme's dramatic turnaround — commitment and experience.

The Vikings beat Waterford on Thanksgiving Day, 42-0, to qualify for the CIAC Class MM playoffs. They finished the regular season with a 9-1 record, their lone loss coming against New London (14-13), the No. 4 team in The Day's Top 10 state coaches' poll.

East Lyme finished 4-7 in 2008 and 4-6 the year before that.

"We've won eight games total the last two years, and we just eclipsed that today," senior Kevin Miao said. "It's a huge turnaround."

Miao and head coach Paul Tenaglia both credited first-year assistant Kevin Marchant with improving the team's conditioning.

"The previous season, there were a few core guys that would be in the weight room three or four times a week," Miao said. "When five or six guys are getting a lot better, but the whole rest of the team is lagging behind, it's hard to maintain any success.

"What Coach Marchant did this year was he brought in everybody and made it mandatory (to lift). He's a real smart guy when it comes to that stuff."

East Lyme's hard work continued through the summer, too.

"In July, 90 degrees on a Friday night, (there would be) 25 to 30 guys (lifting) every week," Tenaglia said. "That is amazing to me. Even when I played, I'd never seen that. That's commitment, if you can get them in the middle of the summer in July on a Friday night until 7:30 lifting weights, sweating, doing the running, then you know you have a pretty good group.

"All of a sudden, those offensive linemen are 30 pounds heavier. They bench 100 pounds more. You put all that stuff together and you've got a pretty good football team."

East Lyme has also benefitted from having 19 seniors.

"A lot of times, when you coach a young team, there's a lot more teaching than coaching the games," Tenaglia said. "That's one thing — you have to accept what you have. We knew we were young, and we also had to get in the weight room. And those guys made the commitment.

"As long as you get in that frame of mind and show patience with the kids when they're young and make it more (about) teaching, then it plays dividends in the long run."

A speech for the ages

• It was a halftime speech that will live on in Ledyard football lore. With the Colonels leading just 7-0 after an uninspired first half that saw them punt three times, lose two fumbles and score just one touchdown on a 58-yard run from Zeke Torres, senior captain A.J. Wilcox did his best to rally the troops.

"We went down to the bomb shelter all bickering at ourselves," senior captain Shane Sullivan said. "We were up 7-0, but we were making mistakes. Things weren't going our way. We all came together and A.J. Wilcox stepped up as a leader and said, 'This isn't about any of us.' And it really isn't. It's about Matt Buriak. He came back to football because of us and we decided to stop being selfish and become more cohesive and do what we had to do."

It worked.

Ledyard recovered a fumble on the second-half kickoff and scored on its first four possessions of the half en route to a convincing 35-6 win over Fitch to win the Colonel Ledyard Sword in honor of Buriak, their teammate who passed away earlier in the week.

Sullivan ran for 136 yards and two touchdowns in the second half alone.

"It's special to come out and beat a team like Fitch," Sullivan said. "We just came out with all of our emotions for Matt and took care of what we needed to. We came with a good game plan and went out with a bang."

Sullivan compared the team's situation to that of UConn's in the wake of Jasper Howard's death last month, and UConn lineman and Waterford High alum Zach Hurd spoke with the team on Wednesday.

"To come out and persevere as a team is unheard of," Sullivan said. "Even UConn, after Jasper Howard died, they came out and had a tough game against West Virginia the next week and things didn't go how they had planned. We wanted to come out and win, but the situation we were in definitely prepares you for the worst."

Zurita: plenty in reserve

• Although he's spent most of the season on the bench, Josh Zurita has proven that hes a valuable commodity no matter what.

Zurita started at quarterback on Thanksgiving Day in relief of Josh Clements, who suffered a concussion two weeks ago vs. Griswold. Zurita, making his second straight start, was 9-of-24 for 109 yards and two touchdowns in a 34-14 win over Norwich Free Academy.

Zurita, who didn't throw an interception, also rushed for a touchdown.

Clements suffered a concussion in a Nov. 13 game against Griswold.

Coach Jeff Larson said Clement was cleared to play, but he opted to sit his starter out another week so he could be ready for the Class M state playoffs.

Larson pronounced Clements ready to go for next Tuesday's semifinal when the top-seeded Whalers host fourth-seeded Bethel, yet Zurita sees the need for his game to improve.

"I'm going to prepare myself as much as I can to be ready for the playoffs," Zurita said. "I can't make mistakes like I did (Thursday). It can't happen in the playoffs because you're not going to win."

Thursday's game was almost an interactive test for the offense.

"The thing that it does is it allows a kid like Josh Zurita to get in there so if we have to use him, he's ready to go," Larson said. "He sees different situations, but more so, it's confidence in our line to get out and do what you've got to do every time you snap the ball."

Zurita and the offense didn't seem to be in sync in the first half, but the Whalers' defense didn't let the game get too far out of hand. New London recovered five fumbles and intercepted two passes.

"We're where we need to be, but we've still got work to do," Larson said.

Learn and improve

• Waterford coach Mike Ellis sat a table in front of the locker room door after Thursday's game, collecting his players combination locks and giving them hugs and words of encouragement.

Those familiar with Ellis know that he's perpetually upbeat, and he couldn't fault his team for their struggles Thursday.

"Here's the thing -they played probably the best that they could've played," Ellis said. "Could they have made some plays in certain situations, yeah, but in terms of their effort and in terms of their intensity and in terms of the way they brought (both) and played the game today, they played well. We knew that East Lyme (was) bigger. They've got taller receivers. We knew what we were getting in to.

"They've gotten better, they've worked hard and they listen."

Waterford (2-8) struggled throughout the season due to its inexperience (it had 10 seniors on its 46-man roster).

"We started seven sophomores and five juniors along with three seniors (today)," Ellis said. "The thing that I told them is they have a lot of experience throughout the year, but that's not good enough. ... They're going to have to keep working to get better for next year, but hopefully they'll do that and we'll be back on track."

Mea culpa

• Miao, before answering any questions, made it a point to tell reporters that he was embarassed by his comments about Waterford after his team's Nov. 13 win over Stonington.

Miao said after the Stonington game, "I hate Waterford. I know everyone else on the team hates Waterford. I know everyone on the coaching staff hates Waterford. Not the kids, but the town. I want to pummel them."

After the Waterford game, Miao said, "It bothered me. I've been getting a lot of flack for it, so I just wanted to get it out of the way — I apologize for those comments. They were out of line. I was riding high after the Stonington game. I shouldn't have said that."

Future leader

• Stonington senior captain Alex Nazzaro earned a leadership award Thursday sponsored by Washington Trust.

Bears' coach A.J. Massengale couldn't say enough about Nazzaro, whose vast list of accomplishments were read on the field after the team's 30-0 loss to Westerly.

Said Massengale: "Jimmy Connelly made a joke at the captains' dinner, 'We'll all be asking (Nazzaro) for letters of recommendation someday."