New London — New London coach David Kohn was telling a story recently.

He first met Joniyah Bland-Fitzpatrick, last year's freshman superstar for the Whalers and now their sophomore superstar, prior to the season and the two were talking about how the team was going to go about rebounding this season, undersized as they are having graduated their entire frontcourt.

The 5-foot-9 Bland-Fitzpatrick, in essense, told Kohn she'd take care of it.

And that's the confidence with which the Whalers marched through the season in search of their seventh straight Eastern Connecticut Conference division title, the same self-assurance with which they beat East Lyme 53-47 Tuesday night to accomplish that feat.

"Confidence is key," New London senior Olivia Yard said. "You can't play nervous. I'm proud of us all as a team. We all contributed. ... It's really good. I feel like a lot of people didn't expect this out of us. Yeah, we graduated Tai (Pagan) and X (Melendez) and Spencer (Roman, from the frontcourt), but we can still be a team, we can still be a winner."

Bland-Fitzpatrick finished with 20 points and nine rebounds, Jayden Burns had 13 points and eight rebounds, Yard had eight points and six steals and Jade Langworthy had eight points, going 5-for-8 from the free throw line in the game's final 1 minute, 43 seconds. Wendy Gethers added eight rebounds for New London, ranked sixth in the GameTimeCT Top 10 poll.

It was the second win in eight days against East Lyme, with the Whalers needing a comeback in last week's matchup after trailing 17-6 to end the first quarter and withstanding a 29-point effort by East Lyme's Sophie Dubreuil.

This time, the Whalers led from the time Burns hit a 3-pointer just 24 seconds into the game and didn't stop until the final buzzer, when they clinched a tie for the ECC Division I title with Norwich Free Academy, as both teams finished 5-1 in the division.

New London and NFA, ranked fourth in the state, split during the regular season.

On Tuesday, New London led 14-8 after the first quarter, featuring 3-point field goals by Burns, Bland-Fitzpatrick and Yard. And with East Lyme playing a zone defense to force the Whalers to shoot more from the outside than they'd normally like, New London hit three more 3-pointers in the second quarter courtesy of Burns, Bland-Fitzpatrick and Langworthy, who was so wide open it was hard to resist the shot.

New London (16-3) led 27-20 at halftime, when Bland-Fitzpatrick had 11.

Desiree Johnson, another New London senior, started the third quarter with a jump shot and later in the quarter Bland-Fitzpatrick scored six straight points to push New London's lead to 35-24.

East Lyme followed with a 7-0 run, sparked by a 3-pointer from Camryn Price (nine points) to pull it back within 35-31. But New London finished the quarter on a run of its own with a basket by Gethers, a free throw by Burns and a 3-point field goal by Yard as time ran out in the third. That made it 41-31 in New London's favor.

The closest East Lyme (8-10, 2-4) got in the fourth quarter was four on a pair of free throws by Dubreuil with 39.0 seconds to play. Langworthy then completed the scoring for New London, fouled twice and hitting one of two each time.

"I think for them it was a team effort," East Lyme coach P.J. Zipser said. "For Burns and Bland-Fitzpatrick, that's who we focused on defending, but No. 12 Yard and No. 1 Langworthy, they stepped up at the end. ... The two games we played (against New London), our game plan has been right there. I give our kids a lot of credit."

Dubreuil had 19 points for East Lyme.

"The difference (last time we played) is we were down 11 in the first quarter," said Kohn, in his first season with the Whalers. "This game we were up. (East Lyme) is a very good team. I couldn't be happier than to be co-champions given the circumstances.

"... (When we hit shots), it makes them pay for playing that zone. All season, we haven't had a great percentage, but we practice every day."

v.fulkerson@theday.com