Of all the defining moments in Caitlyn Dittman’s life, one last week showed what kind of basketball player she is, while another in the not so distant past illustrates perfectly what kind of young lady she is becoming.

Basketball first.

Dittman, a 6-foot-1 junior at the St. Bernard School, gained notoriety in recent days for a 43-point performance on Jan. 5 against Griswold, a game in which the Saints defeated Griswold 49-45 in double overtime. Dittman, who was 17-for-27 shooting and scored seven points in the second overtime, added 10 rebounds and seven blocked shots.

Note that Dittman is often double-teamed, triple-teamed, sometimes quadruple-teamed.

“I (figured it out) by subtraction,” longtime St. Bernard coach Mike Nystrom said. “I knew one kid had a couple baskets and that’s about it. Nobody else was scoring for us. I knew (Dittman) had around 40.

“(Griswold) was playing mostly zone in the second half. They extended it and went after our guards, which did hurt us at times, but it helped when we dumped it inside to (Dittman). She doesn’t miss easy shots too often. I’m surprised when she misses.

“… I play six kids. We were exhausted.”

Channel 3 dispatched a camera crew for the Saints’ next game, a 38-23 loss to Lyman Memorial last Friday. Frustrated by four defenders, Dittman wasn’t as patient as she normally is, affected all night by foul trouble.

But Dittman’s career-best 43-point effort was already a part of Eastern Connecticut Conference lore for the 2015-16 season. Dittman was named a finalist as CPTV Sports UChoose Student-Athlete of the Week.

“(That game) was a really good experience,” Dittman said. “I don’t think of it as I scored 43. It was the whole team. We did a really good job. We were a little tired, but we had to push through, work through it.

“I can’t do it by myself. I wouldn’t trade (my teammates) for the world.”

Dittman, who last scored 17 in a 38-28 loss at Ledyard on Tuesday, is averaging 21.0 points per game and shooting 49 percent for St. Bernard, which is 4-4 overall entering Friday's game at home against Waterford (6:30 p.m.)

The other story involves Dittman’s career choice. While she hopes to play basketball at the collegiate level, Dittman is also committed to becoming a speech pathologist in honor of the therapists who helped her dad, Bill, rehabilitate following the removal of a cancerous tumor on his tonsils two years ago.

Following 13 hours of surgery and the ensuing 30 radiation treatments to the throat, according to his wife Lisa, Bill Dittman’s customary booming voice fell silent.

“He went through a terrible recuperative phase,” Lisa Dittman said of her husband, a former New London police captain who is now chief of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Police Department. “He’s got his loud voice back again … but he couldn’t talk at all for several weeks. We played a lot of charades. He could whisper a little bit. The kids thought it was nice and quiet around here.

“(Caitlyn) sat here at the table when the speech therapist would come and teach him how to swallow and talk. At 15, she saw her father and said, ‘That’s what I want to do.’”

The Dittmans have a close family tie, part of which centers around St. Bernard. Bill and Lisa both attended the school, as did all of Caitlyn’s aunts and uncles on both sides of the family. Caitlyn’s brother, Will, is a senior at the school.

“St. Bernard is a great school,” said Dittman, who lives in Stonington and attended St. Michael School prior to her freshman year. “I love my friends there. The atmosphere there is probably better than anywhere else.”

“She was headed for St. Bernard,” Nystrom said. “Anybody who thinks I recruited her doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”

One of Dittman’s most passionate fans was her late grandfather, retired Connecticut Supreme Court Justice Angelo Santaniello, who died earlier this year. Lisa said that Santaniello, her dad, would sit and thumb through a scrapbook of Caitlyn’s career basketball highlights and “read it and read it.”

Dittman also enjoys working with kids. Oftentimes when Nystrom arrives at St. Bernard for practice, he finds his star player helping coach the middle school boys’ basketball team. She hopes to use her career as a speech pathologist to reach children.

Nystrom calls Dittman a good leader.

“She’s got a great personality. She’s fun. She’s good with the other kids,” Nystrom said.

“She has tremendous hands, probably the best hands of anyone I’ve ever coached for a big kid. She’ll take the ball out of somebody’s hand. She’s got great timing; she can block shots without fouling. She catches the ball effortless, one-handed even. She has a great touch.”

Like any coach, however, Nystrom wants more.

He knows that Dittman can still get even better with a few tweaks and a little more toughness.

“She’s almost too nice a kid. I wish she would get mad and channel it in the right way. … She needs to work on jumping, doing it more instinctively,” said Nystrom, before inevitably working his way back to the plusses. “… She is shooting 50 percent with people all over her.”

“It’s hard to live up to that one,” Dittman said in retrospect of her 43-point game. “Time will tell.”

v.fulkerson@theday.com

Twitter: @vickieattheday