Stonington — Before the rest of the questions, Stonington’s Nora Walsh — ahead of the pack on the fast break for a good part of the game — was asked this one: Are you on the track team?

“No, I don’t do track, no,” Walsh said, laughing. “I’m struggling to breathe. Like, coach had to sub me out a few times. They were just amazing passes from the mids and even just the other forwards up the field.

“I was happy we executed them.”

Walsh scored three times Tuesday night as the Stonington High School field hockey team gained separation from the rest of the Eastern Connecticut Conference for the first time this season, beating East Lyme 5-2.

Stonington and East Lyme tied 1-1 on Sept. 19 at East Lyme and both came into the game with identical records of 7-2-1 overall, 7-0-1 in the ECC. Stonington, now 8-2-1, 8-0-1, leads the ECC by a game with three league contests remaining.

“We came out with a lot of intensity today,” Walsh said of the difference between this Stonington-East Lyme faceoff and the last one. “We were pretty frustrated with the tie. We know East Lyme is a really good team so we wanted to come out strong and make sure we had a really good first half. And we came out with intensity and ready to play.”

Walsh said the team had a pasta dinner Monday night which happened to be at her house.

She said team captains Megan Harris and Bri Plew rallied the team during Monday’s practice, as did head coach Jenna Tucchio.

“We really wanted this so we came out strong and we ended strong,” Walsh said.

Stonington led 2-0 at halftime, getting the first goal from Walsh less than four minutes into the first quarter, unassisted on a breakaway. The Bears scored again at the 12:06 mark of the second quarter, again precipitated by a Walsh fast break. This time, Walsh passed back to Paige Goebel, who fired a shot. Misha Lewandowski scored off a rebound.

Walsh made it 3-0 in the third quarter on an assist by Olivia Duhig and, following a string of five straight East Lyme penalty corners in the fourth quarter, Stonington quickly reversed fields to make it 4-0 on a goal by Duhig.

East Lyme’s Gracie Lloyd scored with 6:58 to play on a corner, but Walsh responded for Stonington, converting a rebound less than a minute later.

East Lyme coach Emily Murray, who said the Vikings were caught on their heels by the Stonington attack, called a timeout with three and a half minutes to play to make sure her team finished strong.

The Vikings came back with a goal by Callan Keefe, assisted by Lloyd, to complete the scoring.

“I think we’ve grown as a team a lot since then,” Tucchio said of the first meeting between the ECC rivals. “We’ve made some changes on defense. I also think our attacking line is really working well.

“We’ve had a lot of kids in and out of the lineup all season due to injuries and illness, but we’ve been able to somehow piece things together. ... We’ve been working all season on putting our game face on, keeping a positive mindset. Hopefully every day for the rest of the season we’ll continue to get better.”

Each team has three ECC games remaining. East Lyme has games left with Norwich Free Academy (Thursday), Woodstock Academy (Oct. 24) and Waterford (Oct. 26), while Stonington will meet Fitch (Thursday), NFA (Oct. 24) and Killingly (Oct. 27).

“I think they always come out with fire,” East Lyme’s Murray said of Stonington. “Unfortunately, we broke down in the backfield. Defensively (we played better the last time), offensively, I don’t think our passes were connecting. ... We didn’t finish. We had a lot of corners, we had a lot of opportunities, so we didn’t finish.”

v.fulkerson@theday.com