Is this the best Lexington boys' volleyball team ever? The postseason will tell.
'We've done a lot better than I thought we ever would . . . Just being able to be a part of the team that's ended up proving not just themselves, but other teams wrong, it's a blessing.'
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The team has built upon Matteo's foundation to foster a historic season, with hitters playing selflessly serving as a catalyst to the longest winning streak (17 matches) in program history, a stretch in which the Minutemen dropped just four sets.
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'Ale is our heavy hitter. He swings really hard into the block, high hands,' said junior
Nic Sanchez de Rojas
. 'Me and
Nadav
[
Vachtel
] play smarter and make fewer errors, but might get fewer kills. Having three players that have different play styles? I'm still learning from both Nadav and Ale, different little tricks and techniques or strategies to get kills, passing, or defense.
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'We can each learn from each other. Not all other teams have this opportunity.'
Ale Luciani heating up in the first set for Lexington
— AJ (@aj_traub)
Added coach
Marc Turiano
: 'They see what the teams in the past have done and have a healthy respect for it, but they see they have the talent to be great and probably the best team in Lexington volleyball history. They see the path to getting there would be playing a team-based game.'
Vachtel, a senior, completes the net trio driving the magical season. The team's depth keeps the players honest, constantly competing to retain their roles and staying ready if their name is called.
'The deepest team Lexington has ever had,' Vachtel said. 'As we saw in the Brookline game, Nic got injured . . . Two people on our bench stepped in and they performed as we needed to . . . and we won that set. Everyone can step in when we need them to and perform.'
Adam Mann is a superutility man for the Minutemen.
Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe
Embodying that quality is junior
Adam Mann
, who barely touched a volleyball before high school but fell in love with it. Mann said he 'worked [his] butt off' to make varsity and has been the versatile piece that helps save the team when it needs a boost.
He's always ready to jump in wherever he is needed: hitter, libero, defensive specialist, or anywhere else.
'When your spot is locked up, you may get a little lenient and don't have to work as hard,' he said. 'When you don't know what position you're going to play or when you're going to play . . . you're going to die on the court and work the hardest.
'I'm diving for balls, I'm giving my all to the team.'
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Though the Minutemen
Now, the top four hear the footsteps of the Middlesex champion as the tournament nears.
Lexington senior Ale Luciani is known as the team's most powerful hitter.
Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe
'I don't think we're going to surprise anybody anymore,' Turiano said following the Brookline match. 'I think we have the ability to be a true contender in D1.'
Though Matteo graduated, his mark on this trailblazing squad is evident. He convinced Vachtel to play and influenced Sanchez de Rojas to switch from soccer to club volleyball. He takes pride in his younger brother forging his own legacy.
'I wanted to be an inspiration for them, but I didn't think I was that big of one in that way,' Matteo said. 'To see it firsthand and hear it firsthand is really cool. I'm proud of myself and of them that they're having this success. I do hope that it comes to something really good.'
As the Minutemen race towards the postseason, they have a newfound confidence.
'I think that up until [Brookline], people were looking at our record and strength of schedule and shrugging us off,' Sanchez de Rojas said. 'I think now people are thinking of us as a serious contender, and people will be scared of us entering the tournament. I think people will be like 'Oh no, I'm playing Lexington,' which is nice.'
The Lexington boys' volleyball team, bottom, huddles before taking on Acton-Boxborough, top, in a a senior night match at Lexington High School on Thursday, May 22, 2025. Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe
Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe
Set points
▪ In further evidence that Natick has put its previous shortcomings behind it as the postseason approaches,
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Though Natick took down Brookline once and Newton North twice, the Rockets presented a mental obstacle. The Redhawks started off the season with a loss in Needham, but finally broke through.
Middle
John Carroll
earned the senior-day victory, the first time Natick won the matchup since his brother,
Brendan,
won on his senior day in 2019.
'This performance was very good,' said coach
Peter Suxho
. 'You see it in the front row, in the back row, everywhere we are better.'
Related
:
▪ It is coming down to the wire, but it appears Newton North in Division 1 and Wayland in Division 2 will avoid sliding as they drop late matchups due to injured stars. Earlier wins and high strength of schedule prop up their
The Tigers complete a quartet of Bay State teams in the four spots, all with home-court advantage until the neutral-site semifinals, but have been playing without several key players, including elite hitter
Simon Vardeh
.
The Warriors have been without
AJ Traub can be reached at
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LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY - MARCH 01: Amari Williams #22 of the Kentucky Wildcats celebrates in the first ... More half against the Auburn Tigers at Rupp Arena on March 01, 2025 in Lexington, Kentucky. (Photo by) If Amari Williams is on the court, there's a good chance he started the day with his version of the breakfast of champions: Weetabix. It's a light, crispy, whole-grain cereal that's popular in the UK. The Nottingham, England native can't always get his hands on it in the U.S., but to his surprise, it was an option at Summer League in Las Vegas. "Surprisingly, I've seen it at the breakfast table [on] the first day we got here, which caught me off guard," a delighted Williams told Forbes after the Boston Celtics wrapped up practice near the end of their stay in Sin City. "But I only have Weetabix on game days, so that's when I've been having it." When he does, his preference is to do so with warm milk and sugar. However, the countless combinations to enhance this pregame staple are part of its appeal. "I actually poured honey in it the other day. That was nice, too," shared Williams. In his final collegiate season, a campaign spent with the Kentucky Wildcats, the seven-foot center would often settle for a few pieces of toast for breakfast before road games. It was at the NCAA Tournament when his head coach, Mark Pope, realized this. He knew that had to change. He encouraged Williams to add more fuel before tip-off. As luck would have it, the team was able to find it in stock in Lexington, Kentucky, as well as at an international store in Milwaukee. As Williams helped lead the Wildcats on a run to the Sweet 16, Big Blue Nation elevated Weetabix to the top-selling cereal on Amazon, per Tyler Thompson of That led to Williams getting on the cover of the cereal his parents used to force him to eat as a kid. "After the NCAA tournament, I got two personalized boxes with my face on it," he told Forbes. Coach Pope and teammate Brandon Garrison also indulged in Weetabix as Kentucky made its mark on March Madness. It was an example of the bond Williams cultivated with those he shared a locker room with. "He is unbelievable," Coach Pope conveyed to Forbes in an exclusive interview where he raved about the person the Celtics' center is off the court. "You talk about a guy who cares about all the right things. He's incredibly protective of his teammates. He loves his teammates. He would take a bullet for his guys, and that's not a cliche. That's actually deep in his heart. Like, it matters. His locker room matters to him. His guys, his staff, they matter to him. And so he's going to be a welcome addition in the locker room." That's quite the role to take on after arriving in "The Blue Grass State" following four years at Drexel. While discussing the roots of that protective nature, Williams shared, "I just knew that all of us were new last year, and just trying to meet new guys. It was different than a lot of teams, which we've all been on in the past. But I feel like in the summer, living together in the lodge, we all gelled well, and those relationships will last a lifetime." Amari Williams has a unique offensive arsenal The No. 46 selection in this year's NBA Draft grew up as a guard. From age 14 to 15, he shot up from about five-foot-11 to roughly six-foot-four, he recalls. Luckily, Williams retained his passing prowess and comfort level handling the ball. It also helps that even after his height took him from floor general to patrolling the pivot, "My high school team was positionless basketball. So, anyone could push it in transition." That's a part of the appeal the Celtics saw when deciding to draft Williams, who is expected to join Boston on a two-way deal. It's a talent that feels more valuable than ever, given the NASCAR-like pace of today's NBA. "It's an incredible luxury," Coach Pope expressed to Forbes. "It also allows you to take elite-level scorers -- it allows you to take them, and instead of them being on the ball to start a possession, you could get them away from the ball and let them use some actions coming back to the ball early in a possession, early in the clock. So, the point guard doesn't have to give up the ball and get it back. He can start with it out of his hands, or a two guard, or a shooting guard, or a scoring guard can start with it out of his hands. "Amari can do that work of getting the ball down the floor, and then they can be the first one to come back to it in a scoring position. I think it affords coaches an incredible luxury, with how to rethink the game." Williams's standout trait also comes from growing up with the ball in his hands. He's an impressive facilitator, frequently delivering dimes to teammates cutting to the basket. "I didn't even know he was a good passer, like such a good passer," Celtics teammate Jordan Walsh told Forbes at Summer League. "Eventually, I just started cutting, all the handoffs he was coming at me with, I just started back-cutting them, and he'd find it, and I was like, 'Oh, my goodness.' "I didn't know he was such a good passer. He's a really good passer. And he's bringing the ball up the court, too, and facilitating, it's nice." "It's been a lot of fun," voiced Baylor Scheierman about playing off a center with Williams's passing proficiency. "His vision and his passing ability is something that is unique." As he works to sharpen his strongest suit, Williams is modeling that part of his game after three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic, an offensive hub with elite court vision and a Patrick Mahomes-like ability to deliver perfect passes from any angle. Specifically, he's studying Jokic's "Passing and being patient. I feel like it's easy to throw passes right away, but we [have] got to see the game out," stated Williams. "Take your time with a lot of things. So, I'll say patience and deciding when to throw the right pass." Williams's defensive upside stems from being a multi-sport athlete When he wasn't on the hardwood, the Nottingham, England, native was honing his craft on the pitch. His soccer background has helped him prove more nimble than your typical, plodding seven-foot center. "I feel like it helped a lot, just being able to move quicker than the average big," Williams told Forbes. Celtics assistant coach and Summer League bench boss Matt Reynolds conveyed, "Traditional centers, where they don't switch, I think he can. He can do some switching. He's got long arms, got good instincts, [and] active hands. So when you know he's in position to guard the ball one-on-one, I think he can do that, whether it's against speed or size. "I think he's able to give the game what it needs with respect to whoever his matchup is. And so whether it happens in Summer League or down the line, I'm sure he'll get plenty of opportunities to mix up coverages and matchups and all that kind of stuff. And I think he's going to do pretty well." Mark Pope agrees. He's already seen Williams come through for Kentucky because of his mobility on defense. "I think he's got the potential to be an elite-level defensive player switching one through five. And he certainly showed a lot of signs for that and did that well for us in important moments." It also helps that he has a seven-foot-five wingspan, allowing him to reject, alter, and deter shots at the rim. It's all part of a package that could one day elevate him from a two-way contract to a rotation fixture in Boston. Amari Williams is hard at work at a selfless trait The seven-foot, 262-pound center can impose his will as a screener. He did so with a punishing pick in the backcourt on Jaylen Wells during the Celtics' 92-78 win over the Memphis Grizzlies. But it's one of the areas where the rookie has appreciable room for growth. It's something he's hard at work at with Boston's coaching staff. "I try to do it anytime I can," said Williams of his bone-crunching screen on Wells. "Just to get the pressure off the guards most of the time, but that's something that Boston emphasized a lot. So, I was told a lot by the coaches, Coach Ross [McMains] and everyone here, [in] the first few weeks of training camp. So, that's something I'm taking pride in, and I'm definitely trying to get better at." As he does, he's applying a message from Tosan Evbuomwan, an NBA veteran from Newcastle, England. The former was with Williams when the Celtics drafted him. Suiting up for Brooklyn at Summer League, Evbuomwan has been able to watch Williams and the other British players in Las Vegas play, offering counsel along the way. 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His athleticism and size, his physicality, were all really important to us. And then, the unique feature of him that fit us so well was his ability to pass the ball. Elite level passer, elite level playmaker, has the personality and the desire to be a great, great passing big, and he certainly proved to be that." Williams's facilitating capabilities have already been on display at Summer League. On the heels of getting drafted, he joined the rest of the Celtics' draft class, Hugo Gonzalez and Max Shulga, in helping conduct a youth basketball clinic at a renovated court unveiling at a YMCA in the greater Boston Area. There, he shared the combination that cultivated his playmaking prowess. "A lot of people are saying [that] by playing soccer growing up, that was my first sport, and [by] not hitting a growth spurt until late," said Williams. "I feel like those two things helped my skill set, and something that's helped me get to this level." As for what his passing and the ability to play through him unlocked for Coach Pope's offense, he conveyed how crucial it was for the Wildcats to have someone of his talent in that role. "Well, that's the way we play," said Pope. "We're very much a point-center organization. We'll turn the game inside-out and we love to have our bigs be decision makers, whether it's in a five-out offense, whether it's in a trail kind of into a flow zoom offense, whether it's having them be the playmaker out of a short roll or the Bull's head post or we put the ball in our five man's hands so that he could be a playmaker. And Amari allowed us to do all of those things." When it mattered most, Kentucky leaned on Williams "He was such an elite-level guy," voiced Pope. "In fact, he saved us. We spent the last two months of the season without our starting point guard, our backup point guard, and our third-string point guard, who was our starting two. We lost all of them. And so Amari had this massive burden of kind of righting the ship. We saved ourselves by putting the ball in his hands. "He was breaking the press off the bounce. He was leading the break off the bounce. We could use him as a pressure release to get the ball out of somebody else's hands early in a possession, so we could be settled with him starting the play. I can't overstate the importance of the impact that he had in our season." That ability to grab a rebound and push the ball up the floor, or initiate a transition attack, matters more than ever. The game now operates at a breakneck pace. Williams's new team, the Celtics, is determined to play at a faster tempo with greater regularity. "It's an incredible luxury," expressed Pope. "It also allows you to take elite-level scorers, it allows you to take them, and instead of them being on the ball to start a possession, you could get them away from the ball and let them use some actions coming back to the ball early in a possession, early in the clock. So, the point guard doesn't have to give up the ball and get it back. He can start with it out of his hands, or a two guard, or a shooting guard, or a scoring guard can start with it out of his hands. "Amari can do that work of getting the ball down the floor, and then they can be the first one to come back to it in a scoring position. I think it affords coaches an incredible luxury, with how to rethink the game, which is what we're seeing in the league all the time anyway, right? There are so many bigs that are handling." Kentucky's head coach also shared that where Williams grew the most in his year in "The Blue Grass State" was the evolution of his standout trait. "I just think he became incredibly -- he was used as a play initiator before he got here, but him being a guy that was actually fueling the entire offense, he was the director of the orchestra for us, and so I thought he grew there exponentially." A look into Amari Williams's competitive character The Wildcats boast a blue-blood men's basketball program with a rich tradition and a history of winning. No Division I program has more wins [2,422]. No school has had more NBA Draft selections than Kentucky's 140. That includes three No. 1 overall picks. The Wildcats' eight national championships are the second most in NCAA men's basketball history behind UCLA's 11. While many NBA stars first showcased their talents in Lexington, Williams utilized his one year there to etch his name into the program's history books. "You think about what he did; this is the University of Kentucky," said Coach Pope. "I mean, we're talking about A.D. [Anthony Davis] and KAT [Karl Anthony-Towns], and a billion others, right? And for him to be a record-setting guy, he's the first big ever to have a triple-double in the history of the University of Kentucky, which is just staggering when you think about the talent there. And he did it in SEC play on the road with the way the SEC was this year. "So, just his everyday approach. He never missed a single rep of a single practice or a single game the entire season, was just incredibly reliable, and carried himself like a beautiful vet." The plan is for Williams to start his NBA career on a two-way deal. He'll divide his time between Boston and the organization's G League affiliate in Maine. As he strives for a standard NBA contract and to carve out his place in the league, Coach Pope detailed where Williams needs to improve to stick at the next level. "On the offensive side of the ball, being a finisher. That's a part of the game where he's really growing. He has some real potential. I think he really grew in terms of his junk game, his kind of 10-foot-and-in creative shot-making game. I think he really grew there. So, I think that's a space. "I think he's got the potential to be an elite-level defensive player switching one through five. And he certainly showed a lot of signs for that and did that well for us in important moments. "I think that's going to be important for him to continue growing and just learning the NBA game. We play, very much, an NBA style. But there's nothing like actually being in the mix." A glimpse into Amari Williams the person The Celtics put a premium on their culture. It has a significant influence on who they bring into their work environment. When asked for insight into who Amari Williams is off the court and who the franchise is getting as a person, Coach Pope gushed over his high-charactered former center. "He is unbelievable. You talk about a guy who cares about all the right things. He's incredibly protective of his teammates. He loves his teammates. He would take a bullet for his guys, and that's not a cliche. That's actually deep in his heart. Like, it matters. His locker room matters to him. His guys, his staff, they matter to him. And so he's going to be a welcome addition in the locker room. "He is a culture guy. He's soft-spoken. He's incredibly unassuming. He is willing to do whatever it takes for a team to be successful and win. He doesn't ask to bring any attention to himself ever. He is a perfect teammate in that sense."
