Despite their 11-0 record, the boys’ volleyball team feels as though they continue to go unnoticed by the student body.

Still perceived by some as a relatively new sport, the team was formed approximately 14 years ago, according to athletics secretary Susan Baburins. It took a while to achieve success, but they have won their Mid-Wach league title for the last three years in a row.

“This year we just got ranked 17th in the state,” senior captain Dustin Hartnett said. “I don’t know if it’s because of coach or what. The program is just on its way up.”

Coach Nick Bryant is in his third year coaching the team.

“He’s brought a new style of coaching and just being more encouraging instead of just making us run drills and stuff,” senior Zach Nicoletti said.

Hartnett attributes the team’s fondness of their coach to his age and willingness to participate in practices.

“He’s young which is something different than what we’ve had in the past, because you can kind of just connect with him more,” Hartnett said. “He jumps in and plays with us and it’s kind of nice. You almost see him as a coach and a player at the same time.”

According to the team, boys’ volleyball is not high in the rankings of popularity. However, they will take any recognition they can get.

“Last year we had a maximum of five or six fans per game, and they’re mostly kids who came after their practices were over,” Hartnett said. “But then we had our game against Natick where we actually had fans and a lot of kids afterwards were saying ‘Oh that was wicked fun to watch; I want to come to playoffs next year.’”

According to Nicoletti, tryouts this year had a larger turnout than usual with about forty participants. Although, the players say they still have trouble getting people to tryout which they attribute to the lack of opportunity preceding the high-school level.

“We joke about it a lot, because we know boys volleyball isn’t a popular sport whatsoever,” Hartnett said. “No one knows about boys’ volleyball before high school because there is just really no place to play, unless you do club, but there are only a couple of them.”

Because the current spring sports season isn’t going that well for some other, senior captain Colin Gallagin hopes the team will be recognized more for their hard work and success.

“I wish they knew that we were a legitimate, really-good team,” Gallagin said. “Because people say ‘Oh yeah, all the spring sports suck this year’ but we’re sitting here [undefeated].”

Senior captain Matt Hurley reiterates the value of having fans at their games.

“Having a home crowd really helps the team because the game is a lot about momentum and having the full-force of T-Hawk nation screaming in their faces has really seemed to throw off opposing teams in the past.”