Norwich — There’s just something about Mae Sefransky’s serve.

There are other girls' volleyball players who have a flat serve like Sefransky, the senior setter for Fitch, but she adds something else to it that screws up opposing defenses.

“I honestly think it’s the targeting,” Sefransky said. “When I can make it go flat and go to a specific area on the court that I see is open, I think it’s hard for players to get it and pass it.”

Sefransky’s serve was on target at Thursday’s Eastern Connecticut Conference tournament championship, and she made Waterford her unwilling victim.

Sefransky had a game-high 34 aces and eight aces to earn MVP honors and led the top-seeded Falcons to a 25-19, 26-24, 25-17 win at Norwich Free Academy.

“She was like an assassin at the line tonight,” Fitch head coach Steve Banks said. “She was picking on people and going after them.”

It was the sixth ECC title for Fitch (21-1) and its first since 2008.

“Before Mae developed her jump serve, she had the sickest float serve I’ve ever seen in my life,” Falcons middle hitter Caroline Taber said. “It not only floats, it floats with speed, which you so rarely see. So it’s hard for people to track it. So then we she added the jump into it, now it had the downward trajectory.

"It's got the downward trajectory, the speed of a hard hit, and it moves around. It's very hard to track."

Sefransky served to open the match and although she had just one ace, she screwed up the Lancers’ serve-receive enough that it couldn’t’ generate offense. It also allowed Fitch to take a 7-0 lead.

The Falcons trailed 13-12 in Game 3 when Sefransky attacked again. She had six aces during an eight-point run as Fitch stormed ahead 20-13 and never trailed again.

“She struggles at times hitting the net because there’s such a fine line between an ace and (hitting the) net,” Banks said, “but when she just gets it three inches over, it’s just a tough serve to receive because it also floats. When you have a hard, flat serve like that moves, that’s tough.

“I wouldn’t want to pass it, that’s for sure.”

Waterford head coach Beau Lucas said of Sefransky, “(She’s) the backbone of that program.”

Jen Severino had a match-high 13 kills for the Falcons and Taber added seven kills and two blocks. Mackenzie Aldridge (five kills) played a strong overall game, too.

Vanessa Kobyluck had 23 assists for the second-seeded Lancers (18-5). Mickayla Shelburn added 11 kills.

“(Volleyball) is either serve or serve-receive, and if you’re not serve-receiving well, you need to serve well,” Lucas said. “We did okay serving. We matched up well with them defensively, we matched up well with them on hitting, but where they beat us was at the service line.

“(This) will help us in our preparation for the (Class M) state tournament. We have lofty goals and we still plan on succeeding at those goals. This was a great lesson for us.”

Fitch also flashed its mental toughness. It trailed by as much as 19-13 in the second game but rallied.

Severino had back-to-back kills for the Falcons’ 25th and 26th points.

Fitch came back from deficits of 8-1 and 10-1 in Tuesday’s four-game semifinal win over Woodstock Academy.

“I’m just so lucky to be part of a team with so much grit and so much resilience,” Taber said.

n.griffen@theday.com

Twitter: @MetalNED