In the past decade, area boys’ volleyball lost two of its three teams. On Friday, Athol High School made sure the last remaining program would be around for at least the foreseeable future.
Red Raiders athletic director Dave King announced that the school has hired Hall of Fame head coach Sean MacDonald — an Athol resident — to take over boys’ program.
MacDonald replaces Donna Lajoie, who retired in the spring following a stellar 20-year career.
“I needed to make a big move to ensure we don’t lose the program,” said King. “I think Sean is going to do great things to keep the boys’ sport going in at least one Franklin County school.”
MacDonald, a 1986 Mahar Regional School graduate who played on the Senators’ first boys’ volleyball team, began his volleyball coaching career in 2000 as an assistant at Division III Franklin Pierce College. In 2003, he was hired as the girls’ head coach at Frontier Regional School and has since turned the Red Hawks into a Division III powerhouse — they’ve gone 298-37 with 12 consecutive Western Mass titles and eight state crowns over those 14 seasons.
He also has a year of boys’ coaching experience — he was interim head coach at Agawam High School in 2006 and helped the Brownies to a 20-3 record and a WMass runner-up finish.
MacDonald has been a big advocate for the sport of volleyball throughout the region in the last two plus decades, as an official, Bay State Games coach and the co-founder of the Pioneer Valley Juniors program.
MacDonald was inducted into the Massachusetts Girls’ Volleyball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2014.
“I enjoy coaching more than officiating, which I would have been doing this spring, and I’m very close by so I decided to try it,” said MacDonald. “Plus, I have a little experience with a team in a rebuilding mode after this fall.”
MacDonald referred to his Frontier girls’ squad, which overcame the graduation of their top eight players to win WMass and advance to the state finals.
This spring’s Red Raider squad will look similar in age and experience — eight players graduated from the 2016 team that went 15-4.
“I’m excited about the opportunity to coach Athol,” said MacDonald. “I’m grateful to David for believing I was the right person for this position. I’m also looking forward to expanding on the strong foundation Donna has built and am excited for the upcoming season.”
Athol is scheduled to open its 2017 campaign on April 3 at Putnam Vocational High School in Springfield.