East Lyme — Norwich Free Academy ended the last girls’ basketball season with three wins, 19 losses — unthinkable in a seven-time state championship program, where Courtney Gomez’s first year as head coach produced a final No. 1 ranking in Connecticut.

And then the Wildcats started this season 0-6, leaving Gomez and her players searching for the answers they worked so hard offseason to find.

That’s why there were many smiling faces Saturday in the regular season finale, a 45-37 win over East Lyme that enabled NFA to win the Eastern Connecticut Conference Division I championship at 5-1 and finish the regular season 9-11.

“When you’re a really good team, you should win and be proud of what you achieved,” Gomez said. “But there’s so much more to coaching. If you have kids whose skills are still developing and you can take them from a point where we were 3-25 to here, it’s so much more rewarding.

“The kids should be very proud of what they’ve done.”

Naevaeh Yorke led NFA with 14 points and Brooke Stringer added 13. NFA led the entire game and by as many as 18 in the fourth period. East Lyme freshman Juju Guarraia came off the bench to score 11 points in the final period — three 3-point field goals — and got the Vikings (7-13, 2-4) as close as eight points, leaving Gomez with an occasional tense moment.

But now as NFA awaits its ECC Division I Tournament opponent, Gomez can reflect on a season she called “a positive experience” for her kids.

“At the end of last season, we sat down and decided we needed to accomplish four things as a program,” Gomez said. “One: we needed to get better at basketball. Make shots. Things like that. Two: We needed to stop fouling. Get in better shape. Three: we needed to get tougher. Too many people stole the ball from us. Four: Learn how to win.

“The kids got in the weight room, ran on the track, played AAU and developed some mental resiliency. Every Friday now instead of practice, we do yoga and meditation. You might think I’m crazy, but after the pandemic, the kids need to know what’s going on in their minds. Instead of panicking now, they hold their resolve.”

m.dimauro@theday.com