AJ Traub

Every time Dominic Staunton looks in the mirror, the scars across his body retell the same story from his childhood.
When he steps on the wrestling mat, he writes his own history.
The Wellesley sophomore does not see himself as a disabled wrestler. He’s just a wrestler, and he dominates.

Though the match was drawn out due to a scoring issue, most of it remains a blur for Mila Boucher.
But she remembers two distinct moments: the opposing coach telling his wrestler that he would win because Boucher is a girl, and her hand being raised.

It is hard to be an varsity student athlete. For Jeremy Bullard-Smith, it was even tougher when getting to and from school was a daily challenge.
Between practices, going to the gym, and an uncertain commute, there were days where he would wake up in the early morning, and only get home at 9 or 10 p.m. and get going on his schoolwork.
Then last summer, due to family circumstances, he no longer had a place to live.
Ten months later, the Needham High junior is starting on the top-ranked boys’ volleyball team in the state, raising his grades to A’s and B’s from B’s and C’s, and able to walk home from school if he needs to.
It started with middle school friendship.

After racking up points on the mat for Chelmsford each Saturday, Masih Sadat spends his Sundays working a 12-hour shift at Market Basket.
Each month he sends his earnings to the family he longs to reunite with.
In two years, the 165-pound senior has made himself a wrestler the Lions rely on, improving his record from 4-12 to 16-6. Putting in hours during the offseason, Sadat made strides as a grappler, and improved his English to tell his story to his peers.
It was 1 a.m. on Aug. 16, 2021, when Sadat saw a pair of guns pointing at him through the Afghan desert night. The bombing the day before scattered citizens around Kabul International Airport, leaving the 13-year-old lost without his family and famished, wandering away from the sound of gunfire.

When Greater Lowell boys’ volleyball coach Nate Howe ventured to the Pailin courts at Clemente Park in Lowell to see his players compete in a tournament, he expected them to dominate.
Instead, it was a foursome of older gentlemen who put the match away. They didn’t overpower his team’s athletic core, but racked up points with plays like dumps, tips, and sets over the net to weak spots that counted just the same as powerful kills.
Located in the Cambodia Town area of Lowell, the gravel courts reward finesse, and it’s been the supplemental education that is leading Lowell-area teams to thrive indoors.

A year ago, as a sophomore at Duxbury High, Mateo Goldman decided to try wrestling for the first time.
He’d already won his first two bouts.
“I’ve been through hell,” said Goldman. “And [wrestling] is nothing compared to what I’ve been through.”
In October 2021, he beat acute lymphoblastic lymphoma for a second time and has been cancer-free since. He returned to the football field as an eighth-grader, but the cancer stunted his growth, and the 5-footer soon realized his size capped his ceiling. He never thought he’d be “good at sports or have anything to accomplish in sports.”

As a freshman, Amada Moundele signed up for the Lowell girls’ wrestling team.
She found out there wasn’t one, yet.
“I’ll never forget,” she said. “My first day, I walked in and everybody looked at me like I was an alien that just landed on Earth.”
As a senior, the defending Division 1 165-pound girls’ champion and first female captain of the entire Lowell team looks to lead the Red Raiders to a second straight All-State girls’ championship.

Setters have vital roles on a volleyball team. Involved in almost every play, they represent the heart of the court, the connection between defense and offense, running the point.
For Newton North, Barnstable, and Needham, the top three teams in this week’s Globe Top 20 girls’ volleyball poll, their setters have had different paths leading to where they are now, shaping the identity of their teams.

Shaun McLaughlin is among the best high school wrestlers in Massachusetts. Natick’s senior captain has a style that is unique.
It is suited for McLaughlin, whose right leg ends just below the knee. McLaughlin’s physical challenge stems from amniotic band syndrome, which he was born with.
Committed to Roger Williams University, he has never allowed his physical shortcoming to hold him back on the wrestling mat, where he has compiled a 78-14 record, including a second-place finish at Division 1 States and an eighth-place result at the All-State championship last season.

A “change in leadership.” That’s all the Lafayette athletics department said when they announced in December that veteran head coach Terri Dadio Campbell ‘92 would no longer lead the women’s volleyball team.

An investigation by The Lafayette has found, however, that Campbell—who coached several teams at colleges in Virginia, New Jersey and Pennsylvania during a distinguished career—was in fact fired. And, for several years before her dismissal, athletes complained to the department that she was verbally abusive, mishandled injuries and humiliated players on what, some claimed, was a routine basis.