East Lyme — This was a first for the Fitch High School field hockey team, reaching the Eastern Connecticut Conference championship game on Thursday night with a definitive 3-0 victory over East Lyme, what junior Ashleigh Holmes would later call "the best feeling ever."

There was also the somewhat winding path the Falcons took to their first championship appearance. They got a new turf field in 2020, christened it with a victory on Oct. 5 last year, then got shut down for the year when an outbreak of COVID-19 forced the school into a period of remote learning that coincided with the ECC tournament.

Since then, the Falcons have gotten exponentially better at using the quicker pace of the turf to their advantage, at communicating, growing in confidence.

"Fitch did an incredible job today," East Lyme coach Kristy Behbehani said. "They dominated the game. They executed on the corners. They played significantly better than all the other games (against East Lyme this season)."

"Just the honor of getting the opportunity," said Fitch coach Diane Kolnaski, of making the finals of a tournament which began in 2016. "You work so hard for so many years developing a program, to get them to believe in themselves and to believe in each other to play the best game they have. And now they've beaten a team (East Lyme) twice now that they could never beat."

Third-seeded Fitch (11-4-2) will take on defending tournament champ Stonington (15-2) in the final at 5:30 p.m. Thursday after Stonington dispatched No. 4 Waterford 3-0 in Tuesday's other semifinal.

Holmes scored twice and Oonagh Zimblemann added a goal for Fitch, which scored all three of its goals on penalty corners, overwhelming East Lyme with 12 corners and 16 shots.

The Falcons led 1-0 at halftime, getting their first goal with 10 minutes, 14 seconds to play in the second quarter when Zimblemann scored on an assist by Anna Servidio to cap what was a string of eight straight Fitch corners, as they peppered East Lyme goalie Jaci Felix (13 saves).

It was still 1-0 when time expired in the third quarter, but Fitch took advantage after being awarded an untimed penalty corner at the end of the third, with all-state senior forward Bridget O'Leary taking the initial shot which was saved by Felix and Holmes cleaning up the rebound for a 2-0 lead. Holmes scored on another rebound off a shot by O'Leary with 4:35 remaining in the game for the final margin.

"They just all double team Bridget and all of the sudden I'm on the post," said Holmes, who is 5-foot-2. "Definitely no one sees me."

O'Leary said the Falcons have learned to work together — "I feel like we communicate telepathically," she said.

Fitch was 1-2 to start the season, including a 5-1 loss to Stonington on Sept. 16, then had an unbeaten streak of seven straight games. The Falcons lost to East Lyme 2-1 on Oct. 16, but played the Vikings back-to-back and beat them in the second meeting 2-1 on Oct. 19.

"We knew we had to communicate and work together as a team," O'Leary said of facing East Lyme for a third time. "We had to go into it with a winning mentality. We had to attack on our give-and-goes, seeing the plays. Trust is a big thing. We've learned how to feed the ball forward and have someone run to it.

"(The turf) is so much better of an advantage for us now. We used to practice on the outfield of our baseball field. Then when we came to play on turf, we were gassed. We work very well together now."

Abriel Carey made three saves to earn the shutout.

"It's a pretty darn good feeling," Kolnaski said. "This was their best effort yet (this season), seeing the open space, knowing they can get to the open space. I'm so proud to see that they could do it."

v.fulkerson@theday.com