Groton — He was set to swim back-to-back events to finish off Tuesday's victory.

First, John Marcolina, a senior on the Fitch/Stonington/Ledyard/Norwich Tech cooperative team, won the 100-yard breaststroke in 1 minute, 5.67 seconds, the meet's second-to-last event. Then he walked to the Falcons' bench and grabbed a turquoise-colored towel, which he placed around his shoulders, discarding it just before swimming the anchor leg of the team's 400 freestyle relay.

"It's like a mental thing," said Marcolina, the 6-foot-3 all-state freestyler of the towel. "It helps me refocus."

Fitch won the finale, too, taking the relay in 3:35.60 to cap off an Eastern Connecticut Conference dual meet victory over league rival East Lyme in a matchup between two previously unbeaten teams. Marcolina won four events in the 92-78 triumph over East Lyme, the two-time defending league champion.

"We have a lot of seniors," Fitch coach Ken Berg said. "It's our time."

"It's kind of different seeing it from a senior's perspective," said Marcolina, who also added wins in the 100 butterfly and as part of the 200 medley relay. "It's a cool to see all of (the younger Fitch swimmers) drop time and get out of the pool all excited. It definitely feels good."

Fitch swept the relays, with AJ Murko, Marcolina, Keegan Reck and Maxwell Cartier taking the medley relay in 1:46.91 to kick off the meet. Joe Vignato, Ian Sanok, Sam Heilig and Nathanael Padgett won the 200 free relay in 1:39.93 and Vignato, Reck, Murko and Marcolina teamed to finish first in the 400 free relay.

The Falcons (4-0, 4-0) also went one-two in the 50 freestyle behind Reck and Vignato.

East Lyme's Jack Lombardo won the 200 freestyle (1:55.28) and 500 freestyle (5:13.08) and freshman teammate Ryan Huang was first in the 100 freestyle (53.36) and 100 backstroke (59.31). Bobby Hahn won the 200 individual medley for the Vikings (3-1, 2-1), who were undefeated in ECC dual meets the last two seasons.

Because the meet was held at UConn Avery Point, diving was not contested.

"I think they came to win," East Lyme coach Rob Bouchey said of Fitch. "Pride won. They've been focused on beating us. It's been a talking point for us. I don't believe that all of our athletes performed to the best of their abilities. We swam better than that this year.

"We have talked a lot about the possibility of this happening."

The teams swim one more time during the regular season Feb. 5 at East Lyme before the ECC championship meet March 2.

It was the first victory for Fitch against East Lyme since Feb. 18, 2016, when Marcolina was a freshman. The Falcons also finished first that season at the league championship meet.

"Everyone definitely swam well," Marcolina said of the win. "We had a couple mental lapses we could have done better."

"We did a lot of fast swimming yesterday, but not a lot of volume," Berg said, asked the difference in the outcome of the meet. "Also, our freshman guys bring a real breath of fresh air to the team. I thought the lineup worked well."

v.fulkerson@theday.com