Lebanon — During last year’s state championship run, Kassidy LaTour was the setter for the Lyman Memorial High School volleyball team. This year, coach Emily Sciglimpaglia-Vigue requested that in addition to those duties, LaTour hit part-time.

Similarly, LaTour is a catcher by trade in the spring, but pitches for the Bulldogs softball team out of necessity.

“She does what’s best for the team,” Sciglimpaglia-Vigue said last week of LaTour, with Lyman getting ready to compete Monday in The Day Volleyball Invitational at Mohegan Sun Arena.

“Last year she was my setter because we had two senior hitters and they were there but this year I said, ‘Look, I need you to be a hitter,’ and nothing besides ‘Yes, coach.’ And she’s been a setter all along. But she listens. She’s very coachable. She’s just taken everything I’ve given her and just soaked it all in.”

In what will be the first high school volleyball event at Mohegan Sun, three-time defending Class S champion Lyman Memorial faces state semifinalist Ledyard at 4:30 p.m., followed by 2021 Eastern Connecticut Conference Division I tournament champion East Lyme vs. Fitch at 6:30 p.m.

Dozens of ECC athletes will get their opportunity in the spotlight at Mohegan Sun.

Deservedly, LaTour, a senior, is one of them.

“Just her demeanor and her drive no matter what she’s doing,” Sciglimpaglia-Vigue said of what LaTour brings. “Whether it’s her presence on the volleyball court, presence on the basketball court, presence on the softball field. She just has that athletic-like swag but she carries herself modest.

“She’s so modest. She gets a huge kill and you don’t even know if she’s going to cheer because she’s so modest. The same with softball; she’s on the mound and she’s just as modest.”

Lyman has been to six straight volleyball state championship matches, winning titles in 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2021 (there was no championship contested in 2020 due to COVID-19). LaTour was a freshman in 2019 and mainly watched as the Bulldogs reeled off a title, last year the setter for All-ECC Division II hitters Callie Nanos and Fallon Bailey.

This season, the 5-foot-8 LaTour, who now sets from the back row and hits from the front, has 140 kills, 103 digs, 97 assists, 24 aces and seven blocks. Lyman is 8-4 overall, 2-0 in ECC Division III play.

“Help from my teammates, I feel like,” LaTour said of how she made the switch to being a hitter. “I feel like Carlee (DeRoehn, fellow senior), she’s been a hitter for a long time, so she’s just given me some of the basics ... and some of our past year’s hitters (have helped).”

In softball, LaTour is perhaps even more impressive and more versatile, earning Class S all-state honors as a sophomore in 2021. Although she missed the 2020 season due to COVID, she eclipsed the 100-hit mark in just two seasons, standing with 103 hits. She’s batted .623 with 11 homers and also has 288 career strikeouts.

Pitching in last season’s Class S state tournament quarterfinals, LaTour engaged in a remarkable nine-inning pitchers’ dual in a rainstorm with Old Lyme’s Emma Bayor before the Bulldogs fell 2-1 — “She held her composure,” Sciglimpaglia-Vigue says of that day.

LaTour plays travel softball for the Connecticut Bombers, who finished second over the summer in the 16-and-under USSSA Eastern Nationals in Salisbury, Maryland, and she made her debut for the prestigious Stratford Brakettes junior team, homering twice.

She is still considering her options to play softball in college, hoping to major in environmental science.

“When I was younger, I went to pitching lessons; like, I wanted to be a pitcher,” LaTour said on Wednesday of last week, which happened to be her 17th birthday. “When I started travel ball, I turned into a catcher, I don’t know how.

“... It’s all just so exciting to be in those games (in every sport). It’s so upbeat. Everybody’s upbeat. It’s nice to have a team that’s just there for you. You kind of know everybody here (at Lyman).”

For now the focus is volleyball. The Bulldogs enter Monday’s matchup on a two-game losing streak with a five-game loss to East Lyme last Tuesday and a 3-1 defeat vs. Waterford on Friday.

LaTour calls playing at Mohegan Sun Arena “a dream, kind of.” The matches will be livestreamed on theday.com and Sciglimpaglia-Vigue reports that Lyman’s athletes had a blast recording their player introductions prior to the match against East Lyme.

“They’re pumped,” Sciglimpaglia-Vigue said. “The guys asked me how my team’s going to do under pressure in a big place. I said, ‘They’re gonna thrive.’ We practice with music all the time. We make it louder to simulate a big crowd, having people around.

“They love when the crowds are going wild. They get amped. Their energy, they feed on that energy. Our Dog Pound (student section), so many alumni, alumni families that come watch ... the program has just brought so much into this community. I think it’s an awesome spotlight for the girls. They deserve to be able to have it.”

Last season, Lyman won the ECC Division II regular-season title before falling to East Lyme in the ECC Division I tournament final in a raucous atmosphere at New London High. From there, Lyman, the No. 3 seed, won four consecutive matches by 3-0 margins, including a 25-8, 25-20, 25-13 victory over No. 8 Coventry in the final.

“After the ECC tournament where we just lost in that championship, we wanted it even more,” LaTour said of the 2021 title. “I think everyone was on that game.”

Now, six seniors, including LaTour — whom her coach notes is “the funniest personality ever” when among her teammates — are set on replicating that success.

“I think as long as we’re all helping each other we’ll be fine,” LaTour said. “We’ve had rough moments, but the better moments just overtake those. We have so much chemistry. They just make us better; playing those big schools just makes us better in the long run.”

v.fulkerson@theday.com