Lyman, East Lyme prevail in The Day Volleyball Invitational before crowd of 1,081 at Sun

Mohegan — One of Kassidy LaTour's initial reactions to playing in the inaugural high school volleyball tournament at Mohegan Sun Arena on Monday night:"It was crazy," said LaTour, a senior at Lyman Memorial. "The cameras and the jumbotron, that's crazy. I've never been on a jumbotron before except maybe in the crowd, doing the YMCA."Lyman won the first half of an Eastern Connecticut Conference doubleheader in The Day Volleyball Invitational, beating Ledyard 25-15, 26-28, 25-14, 22-25, 15-12, an even back-and-forth match which featured long rallies and impeccable defense.The second portion of the evening belonged to East Lyme, which toppled Fitch 25-13, 25-21, 25-23 in an ECC Division I matchup on an evening which featured an electric volleyball atmosphere with 1,081 fans, boisterous student sections and cheerleaders."We don't have a big student section often so this really helped us," East Lyme's Skylar Bell said. "It was nervewracking coming in here. Fitch is really good. We knew it would be pretty hard.""This was an electric event," East Lyme coach Jack Biggs said. "We're super proud to be invited. We'd like to thank The Day and the Mohegan Sun for allowing the players, the fans, the coaches to showcase ECC volleyball."In the opener, LaTour helped finish things in Lyman's favor with 17 kills, eight assists, three aces, a block and 32 digs, while Carlee DeRoehn had six kills, four aces, 15 assists and 31 digs. Arianna Garcia, the Bulldogs' libero, had a team-high 43 digs, while Erica Arpin had 26 digs and four aces and Mia Attardi 23 digs.Lyman (9-4) broke a two-match losing streak after defeats last week against East Lyme (five games) and Waterford.Ledyard (6-8) tied things two games-all by coming from behind in Game 4. The Colonels knotted the game at 21-21 on a long series of service success from Grace Bush and won eight of the last nine points in all to force a fifth game.Lyman coach Emily Sciglimpaglia-Vigue had a few moments to meet with her team before Game 5 and advised the Bulldogs to remain aggressive."We talked about being aggressive and we had the serve," Sciglimpaglia-Vigue said of her team, the three-time defending Class S state tournament champion attempting to build its resume as it prepares to attack the postseason once again. "I wanted to win on kills and earned points."We talked about starting out right away. Being aggressive and not giving them free ball after free ball after free ball."The fifth game was tied 9-9 before Lyman won three straight points to force a Ledyard timeout — the Bulldogs used a spectacular dig from Garcia to take a 12-9 lead — and four consecutive points overall to make it 13-9.Ledyard pulled within 13-12, but a point from DeRoehn got Lyman to match point at 14-12 and DeRoehn served out the victory.Bryleigh Johnson had 44 digs for Ledyard, Grace Haydash 32 digs and seven kills, Layla Lasisomphone 19 assists and Aniya Pearson 11 kills.Ledyard has made an art of comebacks of late, falling into a 2-0 hole against Fitch on Oct. 3 before coming back for a 3-2 victory. The Colonels then beat Cromwell and Killingly both by 3-0 margins to put together a three-game winning streak entering Mohegan Sun."Any time you can get down in a match, then come back, that just shows the character of the team," Ledyard coach Jeff Cummings said. "I was nervous (about the atmosphere at Mohegan) too. Character is working through your nerves."For East Lyme (10-2, 3-1), it has been a season in which the Vikings have had to adjust after the loss of several big hitters from last year's team which won the ECC Division I tournament championship."The first thing is we have players that are playing out of position," Biggs said. "We have (the hitters), but it's girls that don't have that confidence yet ... but they have each other's backs, which is cool."Bell had 14 digs and four aces for the Vikings, while Chloe Vaglio had six kills and eight digs, Shae McMunn had 26 assists, Addison Soleau seven kills, Carolyn Place six kills and Sydney Lapham five kills.Annalynn Cahill and Madelyn Fancher had seven kills each for Fitch (7-6, 1-3), Madelyn Aldinger had 17 digs, Isabella Ditmore 13 assists and Katie Tuohy five blocks.The Falcons forced two East Lyme timeouts in Game 2 before the Vikings took control and Game 3 was tied for the final time at 14-14 before Bell unloaded five straight points with her line drive of a serve to put the team ahead 19-14.v.fulkerson@theday.com