Wednesday’s boys’ volleyball roundup: Amaris Cotto, Newton North KO Lexington in five sets

Amaris Cotto has been on a state championship team with Newton North, but hasn’t played a match in which his role looked quite like this.

Read more Jalen Brunson, Knicks finish on 11-0 run to steal Game 1 of NBA Finals from Spurs

The senior right side was a key piece when the 12th-seeded Tigers were on the side of the Lexington High gym where the low strip of ceiling loomed over the left side of the net. He belted three of his 16 kills to help pull away, and the underdogs escaped with a 25-22, 18-25, 25-20, 17-25, 15-12 second-round victory over the No. 5 Minutemen in the Division 1 tournament.

“It was just all hard work,” Cotto said. “We practiced through this. This is how we play. Everybody just put in the effort into this game, and I think everybody was just great.”

One of Cotto’s last kills went cross-court and the Minutemen passed it into the low ceiling, and the final point saw the ball ricochet off it too and force the fatal error.

When they were able to set the outside, the Tigers (8-11) found sophomore Aaron Stein for 17 kills and senior Kayden Burns-Wong for 13. Peter Reale (10 kills, 2 blocks) battled in the middle.

“I feel like the culture just kind of shifted,” said Reale, of the team’s strong finish and tournament play. “At the end of the season, we were saying a lot of ‘We’ll get a next game. But we realized like it’s coming to an end soon and we just want to extend that season as long as possible . . . It’s a culture of winning, culture of deep playoff runs, so we really knew that was possible.

“We wanted to live up to our highest expectations.”

It extends a streak for coach Nile Fox, who has one boys’ volleyball championship and three girls’ titles, that he has still beaten a single-digit seed each postseason in both since starting in 2021. This was his first time doing it as a double-digit seed.

Read more Wednesday’s 10 high school tournament takeaways, plus the Gatorade baseball Player of the Year

“We know what we’re doing. We’ve been to big games,” Fox said. “This team, this is the first [below .500] team that these kids have had. They’ve only known final fours and state championships… And it’s the underdog. We were the underdog, the whole season, nobody really thought about us.

“We wanted to show everybody how good we really are and how good we can be.”

Division 2 State

Norton 3, Medfield 2 — After being swept twice by Medfield in the regular season, the No. 21 Lancers (15-5) made an adjustment and took down the 5-seed 20-25, 25-19, 25-22, 21-25, 18-26 in a second-round stunner.

Andrew Strojny (27 kills, 16 digs, two blocks), Alex George (29 digs, three assists), Jordan Moore (42 assists, 10 digs), and Ailton Evora (6 aces, 11 kills, 14 digs) executed their plays and ran a 5-1 system that they had first experimented with in one of those losses to the Warriors (17-5).

“They went into it with a lot of determination and drive,” said coach Meg Hardiman.

“To take a set was an achievement in itself. They played their hearts out. They were positive to each other, making sure they were staying in a good mind-set. Even if they were to lose, seeing how they played and being the team they were, I was a happy coach.”

Read more Payton Tolle brings the heat on the mound, and an infectious joy off it