Postseason Bound Stoughton High Volleyball Sweeps Randolph on Senior Night

The Stoughton High Volleyball team cruised to a 3-0 win on senior night over visiting Randolph Friday evening.

The Black Knights surrendered only 31 combined points all match in a 25-8, 25-12, 25-11 straight-sets win, the team's second over Randolph this season.

Kayla Motley had 11 kills and 11 service points; Gabby Medina had 16 digs, "two of which were of the spectacular variety," coach Ken Gay said. And, Nicole Daniels recorded her 100th block of the season.

Stoughton honored its six seniors - captains Medina, Emma Zuk and Lauren Carmichael, as well as Daniels, Kadijah Dansby and the team's only male, Jalen Joseph.

Stoughton, postseason bound, wraps up its regular season 13-5, the best mark in the program's five-year history. And while senior night is traditionally held on the last regular season home game, the hope is that once MIAA state tournament seedings are released next week, 13-5 will be good enough to get Stoughton a home playoff match.

"We have played well over the last month beating the teams we should and playing the other teams tough. We look forward to a hard week of practices as we await the announcement of seedings and hope for a home match," coach Gay wrote in an email.

Last season, the first year the volleyball team made the tournament in program history, coach Gay said seeing the film Moneyball (released in the fall of 2011), which chronicles how Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane built that Major League Baseball club, changed his perspective on coaching.

“It changed my thinking,” coach Gay said in an interview last season. “I expected more from [the team] than I should; I had to change my thinking from champion cheerleader to analyzing and feeding them what I see. [I] took the challenge of improving as a coach.”

It's a theme he continued to play on following the team's senior night victory Friday evening.

"13 and 5 who would have ever dreamed [this record] in year 5 of the program. I guess hard work pays off for both the Oakland A's and Stoughton," coach Gay wrote in an email.