While boys won girls' volleyball state championships in Massachusetts this year, it turns out that it wasn't the first time that it had happened.

Two boys helped the Oliver Ames girls' volleyball team win a Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association Division 2 state championship, 3-2, over Wayland on November 15, 2025, and a boy helped the South Shore Tech (Hanover, Massachusetts) girls' volleyball team win a state vocational championship on October 27, 2025, 3-1, over Smith Vocational and Agricultural High of Northampton, 3-1, as NewBostonPost previously reported.

Meanwhile, a boy also helped the Shawsheen Tech (a regional public high school in Billerica, Massachusetts) girls' volleyball team win a state vocational title last year. However, it drew little attention at the time, and the boy's contributions to the championship team had not been previously reported.

Shawsheen Tech defeated Norfolk County Agricultural School (a regional public high school in Walpole, Massachusetts) 3-0 to win the state vocational championship game on October 28, 2024.

That team had a boy who was a major contributor:  libero Caden Cooper.

Cooper had a team-high 11 aces in the championship game and was second on the team with eight digs, according to the box score. Additionally, Cooper led the team with 101 aces and was second on the team with 134 digs last fall, according to MaxPreps.

A dig is a defensive play where a player stops a hard-hit ball from hitting the floor, keeping the play alive. An ace is a serve that lands for an immediate point because the receiving team cannot return it.

Massachusetts is the only state in the country where boys who identify as boys can play on girls' sports teams. They do so every year, and some make a major impact on their respective teams.

The state allows boys to play girls' sports due to the 1979 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision in Attorney General v. Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association. The court determined that the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association's policy of the time, which said "No boy may play on a girls' team," was unlawful. The court's opinion was that it violated the Equal Rights Amendment of the Massachusetts Constitution.

Here is what the Equal Rights Amendment of the Massachusetts Constitution says:

All people are born free and equal and have certain natural, essential and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness. Equality under the law shall not be denied or abridged because of sex, race, color, creed or national origin.

The Equal Rights Amendment was only a few years old at the time of that decision. It passed due to a ballot question in the November 1976 general election; 60.4 percent of voters backed it, while 39.6 percent opposed it, according to the Secretary of the Commonwealth's office. Every Bay State county voted in favor of the proposed amendment.

Statewide, in the fall 2024 season — the most recent data available — 325 MIAA member schools had girls' volleyball, and 96 boys played for those teams, according to MIAA participation survey data.

The athletic director for Shawsheen Tech could not be reached for comment.