Norwich — There was no motivational speech. Instead, Mike Flynn, the girls' cross country coach at East Lyme High School, chose the more cerebral approach.

"I thought this would be a good barometer of where we are internally," he said Tuesday, moments after his team illustrated plenty of internal fortitude.

His undefeated Vikings did what few have usually done: Go to Mohegan Park and defeat Norwich Free Academy. East Lyme won 24-31 in Division I of the Eastern Connecticut Conference, handing the Wildcats (6-1, 3-1) their first loss.

Last season, NFA won the regular-season finale between the programs only to lose to East Lyme in the ECC championship meet, thus rendering co-champions. Now the Vikings (6-0, 4-0) have a chance to win it alone.

NFA freshman Catie Shannon won the meet in 20 minutes, 45 seconds. But she didn't have much company wearing red. East Lyme's Claire Mason, Rasa Kirvelevicius and Brie Am Ende finished second through fourth respectively, all but securing the meet.

"I told them before that ideally, we've got to go 2-3-4," Flynn said. "We know how good their freshman (Shannon) is. Our plan was to test her out the first mile or mile and a half. If she started to go, just hold your position. It was nice to be able to pack together that way."

Still, though, nothing's been decided until the ECC meet (Oct. 19 at Norwich Golf Course). It's not lost on either side the events of last year. Or the significance of preparing for big meets.

"I looked at it in the sense — and I was talking to (NFA coach) Kara (Kochanski Vendola) and we said we both needed to have our teams compete in this kind of head to head matchup," Flynn said. "I think it's important before we hit the ECCs and states to kind of go through the process of having pressure and how you deal with that. ... I think last year the girls got a little tight before the dual meet. That was the first time they had pressure on them and they lost. We came back looser in the ECCs and won. We needed to be loose today."

Now the Wildcats face what East Lyme did last year.

"This was our biggest competition all year. The first time to really dig in deep and race," Kochanski Vendola said. "It's good preparation for next week. We don't like to lose. We came in with the goal to be undefeated. They're a little bummed out. But we also know we went into ECC meet undefeated and East Lyme came back to beat us. The ECCs are a totally different meet."

m.dimauro@theday.com