After Serving Up 10-0 Season, Boys Volleyball Set for Varsity Status

With enthusiasm and success continuing to build for Wilton High School‘s boys volleyball program, the burgeoning team now plans to spike it to the next level.

WHS Athletic Director Robert Rushton visited the Board of Education on Thursday evening, Nov. 6, sharing the plan to unofficially elevate the junior varsity team to varsity next season.

While the team’s spring 2026 season will be fully funded by their booster organization, Rushton is recommended that the Board of Education, come budget season, officially elevate the team to varsity by funding it for spring of 2027.

“This was part of my five-year plan when I first came here,” Rushton said. “That was something that I recognized right away, that Wilton didn’t have all of the FCIAC and CIAC-sanctioned sports, including boys volleyball.”

Based on actual costs for the girls 2024 team, he estimates that it will cost $41,529 to run the program, including coaches, transportation and officials.

“We would be officially, unofficially, a varsity sport this season going into the spring, 2026, fully funded by our generous families and the booster club,” he said.

Having begun as a club, the team has gone on to compete at the junior varsity level.

“Last year, the team went 10 and 0 amongst all FCIAC schools at the JV level,” Rushton said. This year, he said, they’ll compete in a league schedule for 15 games with FCIAC teams … Then hopefully we have another year of data to support this great opportunity that we can provide more Wilton student athletes,” he said.

While there are currently 14 boys participating in play, Rushton said they would need about 25 students in order to compete at both the varsity and junior varsity level in 2027.

“I think elevating us to varsity status, where kids can become all-league and all-state, and potentially compete for a state championship, I think will only elevate the participation,” he said, noting that they’ve been trying to get the word out at Middlebrook School.

“I think elevating it really gonna kind of push the needle there in terms of participation and numbers,” he said.

Superintendent Kevin Smith said that the success of the boys volleyball program over the past two years has been remarkable.

“There’s a clear show of support and I just think that bodes very, very well … Thank you all for having such a strong hand in pulling this together,” Smith said.

Rushton praised the work of parent Jay Moon in establishing the booster organization.

According to figures presented by Rushton, 36% of the student body participate in fall athletics, including 123 freshmen, 121 sophomores, 97 juniors, and 82 seniors.

In other business, the BOE heard about, and subsequently approved, some new course offerings at WHS, including speculative fiction, a college-preparatory course that focuses on fiction that departs from realism, such as fantasy or science fiction.

Another new course offering is Audio Production, Podcasting II, which will give students a chance to learn and practice skills related to the production of professional podcasts.

Page to Stage: Theater as Literature is a course focused on the analysis of plays and musicals to augment thematic connections relating to identity, culture, class and society in general.

The UConn ECE Personal Financial Literacy was hailed by WHS educators as fostering competitive skills in this finance area, and also make the district the first in the state to offer it. They said it would make WHS’s business department more competitive with Ridgefield High School, which currently offers 15 business courses and is the only other school in Wilton’s reference group with ECE Personal Finance certified staff.