Boston Globe

Jake Webster passed along the baseline to Egan Gill, who lobbed it across the court back to a streaking Webster, who floated a pass to Brody Bumila on the left side for the layup with one second left, tying the second overtime.

It would eventually take four overtimes, but No. 14 Bishop Feehan stunned No. 3 Needham — and a crowd so packed that there were rows of standing fans on each side of the court — in its own building, 94-87, in a Division 1 second-round game that lasted more than two hours.

“We just worked harder,” said Bumila, who racked up 49 points, 22 rebounds, 4 steals, 3 blocks, and just 3 turnovers. “We outworked them, we got the 50-50 balls, made the free throws when we had to, and we took the W.”

Every time Ike Asiegbunam plays volleyball against Milford High, he looks for Marcelo Gomes da Silva.
Before the Taunton boys advanced with a 24-26, 27-25, 25-15, 25-16 win in the second round of the MIAA Division 1 tournament, Asiegbunam and fellow senior Danny Freitas coordinated their teammates wearing white T-shirts saying FREE MARCELO during warmups.
They joined the sea on the Milford players and in the bleachers. The crowd was there to support the host Scarlet Hawks, but also to show that everyone wants Marcelo Gomes da Silva back home after he was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on Saturday.

Everyone knew where the final ball was going, and Finn Bell would not be denied.
Career kill No. 1,485 — more than anyone in Massachusetts boys’ volleyball history — was destiny off the senior’s outstretched hand from the back row, completing an 18-4 run to end it after the team’s No. 2 outside went down with an injury. Top-seeded Wayland (23-2) is a state champ for the first time in its fourth final appearance.
“It’s amazing,” Bell said after the 25-15, 25-21, 12-25, 25-13 win at Worcester North High. “It’s what I’ve been chasing the last four years in my career. Having the final kill too, it’s surreal. The best feeling I’ve ever had on a volleyball court.”

Amelyiah Martinez isn’t often tested on the wrestling mat.
But on Friday, in a match between Martinez’s Lowell squad and a co-op team of Boston City Schools “All-Stars,” she found herself locked in a tight battle. By the second round, she found her footing, won by fall, and completing Lowell’s 24-21 comeback from down 21-6 with a third straight pin.
“It’s amazing when you walk in and see those other 15 girls,” Martinez said. “You want to have that want, that need to win. That primal urge to win. Your teammates banging on the hardwood floors, when the ref is counting off back points, that’s what makes you put that extra 5 percent in.”

Fifty-four minutes, 38 seconds.
That’s how long James Tildsley spent in his career wrestling at the George Bossi Lowell Holiday Tournament, racking up five championships at five weight classes and becoming the first five-time winner in the history of the prestigious event.
A 12-1 major decision at 157 pounds at the Tsongas Center on Saturday was the last of 31 consecutive wins, 25 of which were pins.

Sasha Selivan galloped to the service line and unleashed full force, like how she burst onto the high school volleyball scene already a premier player.

The sophomore’s serving runs were game-changers for Newton North — a five-point run in the first and a four-point run in the second — to propel the top-seeded Tigers to a 29-27, 25-22, 25-14 Division 1 championship victory over No. 2 Brookline at Billerica High.

It is the third in a row and sixth all time for North (24-1).

The only thing sunnier than the 80-degree weather at Memorial Field in Natick was the energy from all the unified track and field teams that saw all their work come together in the MIAA championships.

Methuen’s Donovan Rice crossed the line first in Heat 1 of the 400-meter dash, with a smile on his face and his fists in the air. It’s an energy he matched for his teammates, Ryan King and Jonathan Bueno.

“It makes me feel happy,” Rice said. “It’s a lot of fun.”

“All I wanted to do was win states with both [my brothers] in my corner,” he said. “Now with him gone, I knew I could still bring him with me [by wearing his shoes].”The weekend before, after winning the sectional championionship at the Division 2 West tournament, Humphries was cleaning the car of his late brother, Kyle, who died at age 29 on July 7, 2022 of cancer. Right when he saw the red shoes, which Kyle wore when he became state champion at East Longmeadow in 2011, he knew he’d be wearing...

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

Having won All-State wrestling championships in overtime and triple overtime, Shawsheen’s Sid Tildsley was ready for his clutch moment at Gillette Stadium.

Plunging in for 1- and 2-yard touchdowns to account for the only scores of the Division 5 Super Bowl, a 14-0 win over Foxborough, the senior quarterback and wrestling star added the football championship that had eluded him as a sophomore, when he took the Rams to the Super Bowl, and as a junior, when they were eliminated by Foxborough in the semifinals.

Over 4,500 assists, 130 wins, three Division 3 state semifinal appearances, and a title between them, Vivian Castano and Aubrie Letourneau are two of the finest setters the state of Massachusetts has seen.

Each a four-year varsity starter and two-year captain, Castano at Dennis-Yarmouth and Letourneau at Old Rochester, the duo have been making history since they stepped into the high school spotlight, becoming the nuclei of a thrilling rivalry.

On Nov. 20, 2021, Old Rochester prevailed in a rare battle of freshmen setters in a state title match.

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.

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.

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.