The mysterious case of Stetson High School.

Mysteries often pop up when you least expect them.

Case in point: I was in attendance at Foxboro High last night as the boys' basketball team was wrapping up its victory over Randolph High to earn the Warrior Classic championship. And the topic came up at the scorer's table that Randolph had once been a member of the Hockomock League, many moons ago.

Indeed, both Randolph and Westwood were members of the Hockomock back in the 1950s, long before the league embraced football. The Hockomock itself cites 1932 as its founding date, but its core membership -- schools like Mansfield, Foxboro, Franklin, Oliver Ames, Canton and Stoughton -- can trace their affiliation back to the "Norfolk Interscholastic League" of the 1920s.

But as the discussion continued, Ryan Lanigan of HockomockSports.com raised the question of another school that may have had Hockomock membership at about the same time. After a quick smartphone search, he came up with a Twitter post by the honorary "Mayor of Norton," Peter Wiggins, a familiar fixture at the Lancers' sporting events. The post included a photo of an old newspaper clipping from 1950 that had the Hockomock's basketball standings -- and among the teams listed was "Stetson."

Nobody seemed to know what or where Stetson High was -- but after a little searching, I think I've come up with the answer.

Stetson High apparently WAS Randolph High, at least at one point in the town's history.

Here's what I found:

One of the more prominent citizens of Randolph in the early days of the republic was Maj. Amasa Stetson, a former military officer and boot manufacturer who eventually became a state senator. He provided the funds for the building of a new town hall for Randolph -- not surprisingly, called "Stetson Hall" -- which was completed in 1842, two years before Maj. Stetson's death.

The town's first high school occupied part of Stetson Hall, until a new building was built nearby and opened in 1909. The school retained the "Stetson" name, however -- and did until it graduated its last class in 1952.

By that time, Randolph had built a new, modern high school -- and upon its opening, the town decided to call it "Randolph High School." Accordingly, later listings of the standings which I used to find in the old microfilm files of the Mansfield News included "Randolph" instead of its former name.

Naming a town's high school (as opposed to elementary schools) after a prominent community figure is rare, but not unheard of. Of course, Easton's high school is Oliver Ames High, after the patriarch of that famed political family, who was governor of Massachusetts from 1887-90. Joseph Case High School of Swansea was so named by Mr. Case's daughter, who married into money and basically paid for the construction of the town's first high school as long as it was named after her dad. And the original name of Falmouth High School was Lawrence High School (not sure why), but it was changed in 1973 when the newer Falmouth High was opened. The old Lawrence High School is now Lawrence Middle School in downtown Falmouth.

And I almost forgot this humorous aside -- several years ago, there was a short-lived proposal to rename Attleboro High School as "Coelho High School" after a beloved school superintendent. The proposal didn't get much traction, however, and the ink-stained wags of my former newspaper had a field day with it (although not in print). We believed that the proposal was doomed to failure all along because North Attleboro would never agree to becoming North Coelho. Ha, ha.

So there you have it. But a caveat -- if I don't have the story right, please feel free to email me at theownersbox2020@gmail.com, and we'll tell the tale again.

Whitman-Hanson shocks Brockton, will play Mansfield.

The Whitman-Hanson boys' basketball team apparently does Senior Night right, as the Panthers knocked off the Brockton Boxers, 75-70, in what was technically their first-round game in the Mansfield Roundball Classic on Tuesday night.

The two teams agreed to play at Whitman-Hanson, and not at Mansfield on Monday, so the Panthers could stage their Senior Night festivities at home. Whitman-Hanson will play the other first-round winner, host Mansfield, at 7:15 p.m. Wednesday at the James Albertini Memorial Gymnasium.

Prior to that game, the Mansfield girls will take on Natick for the girls' championship at 5:30 p.m. I'll have the call of both games on Mansfield Cable Access.

In other local basketball action, the Foxboro girls overcame a terrific defensive effort by Old Rochester to win the Warrior Classic title, 34-26, to clinch the No. 2 seed in the MIAA Division 2-South tournament. Lizzy Davis netted 12 points and Katelyn Mollica eight for the Warriors, 19-2.

As the saying goes, "Hoop is life."

Foxboro's Katelyn Mollica. (HockomockSports.com photo)

It's the girls' title game of the Warrior Classic for me today, as the Foxboro girls take on Old Rochester for the crown. Game time is 6:15 at the Warriors' gym.

Foxboro earned the title try with a 60-48 victory over Scituate, in which Katelyn Mollica hit for 26 points to lead the way. Old Rochester, meanwhile, downed Hoosac Valley by a 50-33 score.

Last night was a strong night for my alma mater as both Mansfield teams won their openers in the Mansfield Roundball Classic. The girls upset Bishop Feehan, the third-ranked team in Division 1-South entering the game, 47-44, thanks to an 18-9 fourth quarter, while the boys fended off a late Needham comeback to prevail over the Rockets, 63-58. Matty Boen had a great night for the Hornets, 23 points and 13 rebounds.

The girls, now 9-13 but winners of three of their last four, will close the season Wednesday (5:30 p.m.) against 18-2 Natick, which dismissed Westford Academy 48-32 in the other girls' game.

The Mansfield boys, now 20-2, await the winner of tonight's game between Brockton and Whitman-Hanson at the latter school. Those two teams opted not to play at Mansfield because Whitman-Hanson needed to schedule Senior Night festivities, but the winner will come to the Albertini Gym for Wednesday's title game in the Roundball Classic, a 7:15 p.m. start.

So I'm typing talking-point notes for my broadcasts and writing names into my scorebooks -- while, at the same time, writing out my script for a Thursday recording of my next "The Owner's Box" episode. Sometimes I think I work harder now that I'm retired than I did when I was employed.

And it's more fun.

Hoops du jour

It’s the abbreviated Mansfield Roundball Classic for me. Brockton and Whitman-Hanson have opted out of their first-round games at the Albertini, so instead, the lineup is Natick vs. Westford Academy girls are at 3:45, Mansfield girls vs. Bishop Feehan at 5:30 and Mansfield boys vs. Needham at 7:15. Finals and consolations are on Wednesday.

And yes, I do have my seating pad. I don’t leave home without it.

Let's try a little bracketology.

As of today, there are four days left in the 2019-20 high school basketball regular season in this state -- a sad time, because I just love basketball, but we're also just a few more days short of the start of the "second season," the MIAA playoffs.

In my current incarnation as a cable TV basketball announcer, I cover the teams from three local Hockomock League schools. And so far, of the six teams hailing from those, four of them have qualified for postseason play -- the Mansfield boys, the Foxboro boys and girls and the King Philip girls. The King Philip boys need one win in their two games this week, while sadly, the Mansfield girls are out of the running for the first time since 2013.

So, I decided to do a little bracketology -- well, maybe not to that extent, but I did want to see how some of the teams' seedings were shaping up.

The good news locally is that at least two of those teams will have really high seeds. As today dawned, the Mansfield boys have the top seed in Division 1-South, while the Foxboro girls were checking in at No. 2 in Division 2-South. If all that sounds familiar, well, two years ago both teams parlayed high seeds into state championships.

However, a lot can change.

The Hornets enter today's game against Needham (third at 15-3) at 18-2 for the purposes of qualification (their game against Providence Classical does not count). Brockton, also a participant in the Roundball Classic, is 16-2 and two wins in the tournament could propel the Boxers into the No. 1 spot.

Foxboro's girls are 16-2 for tourney purposes, having chosen not to count their win over Feehan. They may not catch 17-1 Norwood (coached by former Feehan star Amy Lepley Quinn) for the No. 1 spot, but they need wins over Scituate and either Old Rochester or Hoosac Valley in the Warrior Classic to fend off Hingham (16-3) or Falmouth (17-3), which is playing in the Riley Classic in Westwood.

I don't do the Foxboro boys' games on Foxboro Cable, but right now they're looking at a No. 13 seed in Division 2-South with two games to go in the boys' Warrior Classic.

As for KP (for whom I broadcast the games on North TV's Plainville Channel), the girls improved their record to 12-8 but could end up anywhere between the No. 9 and No. 11 seeds in D1-South depending upon the results of other games.

And the KP boys are 10-10 going into their participation in the Somerset-Berkley Tournament (playing the host team in the first round), and they need one win in those two games to qualify to get one of the last two seeds in what projects to be a 14-team D1-South field.

As I said, it can all change in a heartbeat before the MIAA has its annual meeting to determine the seeds on Friday. And yes, I'll publish all of them here, and the TV information as soon as I know what I'm doing.

Elsewhere around the area, the Attleboro boys are looking to check in around 6-8 in Division 1-South. Both of Feehan's teams are in, the boys likely around 7-10 in Division 2-South, while the girls (15-3) right now look like a No. 3 seed in D1-South. North Attleboro's girls (9-10) must defeat Attleboro on Wednesday to qualify for D2-South, and both Dighton-Rehoboth teams, Norton's boys, Seekonk's girls and the Tri-County girls are also heading to the postseason.

Because you asked for it ...

A friend of mine on Facebook asked to see the 1,000-point scorers for Mansfield High because he wasn't sure who was among them, so I gladly will oblige.

Mansfield's Ryan Boulter.

Hard to believe that a school so good at basketball has only six names on the 1,000-point list, but there are good reasons for it. First, from the 1970s through much of the 2000s, Mansfield basically sucked at basketball. Sorry to be so harsh, but I went there and I know. There were good individual players from both the boys' and girls' teams, but not enough of them. And second, the style of play entering this period of excellence has been such that the scoring has been spread around among a lot of very talented players, and not all residing in one or two.

Still, talent usually rises to the top, and that's how it was recently for Ryan Boulter and Meg Hill. And keep your eyes on T.J. Guy and Matty Boen, who should enter next season with more than 600 points apiece. The Hornets also play a lot of games, often 23 in the regular season thanks to exclusion and endowment games, so long tournament runs are very helpful to the quest for quadruple digits.

Player                    Points   Games     Career
Ron Gentili              1,387     91        1958-62
Ryan Boulter           1,324     79        2012-15
Sue Patchett           1,214     80         1989-93
Meg Hill                  1,090    100        2014-18
Paul Souza              1,036      58        1976-79
Geoffrey Stearns    1,008    n/a        1956-59

Greatest Hits: The Owner's Box, Ep. 8

Mansfield coach Michael Vaughan

As part of my podcast's "Greatest Hits" series, I offer this link to Episode 8, which features Mansfield High School boys' basketball coach Michael Vaughan.

Vaughan is an MHS alum that started at point guard and returned to his alma mater intent upon changing the culture and making Mansfield a basketball town. The results speak for themselves -- 293 wins (so far) in 16 seasons, 12 straight winning seasons, seven straight with 20 or more wins (with one more to go this year), eight straight Hockomock League divisional championships, two state Division 1 title games, and one state championship in 2017-18.

And Brandon Borde makes it five!

Foxboro High School's Brandon Borde became the fifth local basketball player this season to reach the 1,000-point plateau on Friday night, scoring 21 points to help the Warriors clinch one-third of the Hockomock League Davenport Division championship with a 68-57 win at North Attleboro.

Borde needed 17 points to reach the milestone. He now has 1,004 points, scored in 81 career games.

He became the 13th Foxboro athlete to reach 1,000 and the second this year, following junior Katelyn Mollica. Earlier this season, Seekonk's Mia DiBiase and Attleboro High's Bryant Ciccio and Qualeem Charles all got to quadruple digits.

Borde is just the fourth Foxboro male athlete to accomplish the feat, and the first in 14 years since Tim Cheney finished with 1,039 points in 2006.

Here's the list of Foxboro 1,000-pointers:

Player                          Points Games    Career
Sarah Behn                  2,562   93        1985-89
Jennifer Brown           1,701   95        1994-98
Ashley Sampson         1,530   99        2014-18
Heather Morgan         1,394   90        1997-2001
Mark Gaffey                1,350   77        1979-83
Mike Myers                 1,156   81        2000-04
Katelyn Mollica          1,074   70        2017-
Kristen Hoffman         1,056   88        2006-10
Angela Astuccio          1,048   96        1999-2003
Tim Cheney                 1,039   85        2002-06
Danielle Murphy         1,024   91        2000-04
Holly Grinnell              1,018   85        1984-88
Brandon Borde           1,004   81        2016-

Attleboro's Dynamic Duo, 3.0

Here are the updated career scoring totals for Attleboro High School, including the progress of the latest same-season duo to reach the 1,000-point list, Bryant Ciccio and Qualeem Charles:

Player                           Points Games   Career

Leland Anderson         1,629   74        1995-99
Derek Swenson           1,463   92        1995-99
Sarah Deyo                  1,341   92        2013-17
Rebecca Hardt            1,221   72        1990-94
Mark Houle                 1,219   64        1986-90
Sara Wright                 1,209   75        1995-99
Tom Sherman             1,127   63        1992-95
Tim Walsh                    1,117   74        2010-14
Jesse Martinez            1,085   75        2000-04
John Shockro               1,061   n/a       1962-65
Bryant Ciccio               1,050   82        2016-
Rebecca King*             1,038   40        1949-53
Nikki Lima                    1,030   79        1990-94
Emily Houle                  1,025   90        2012-16
Qualeem Charles        1,000   85        2016-

*— Scored under six-player rules.

Foxboro girls survive Walpole challenge.

Foxboro coach Lisa Downs instructs Katelyn Mollica (11), Aislinn Servaes (2).

Go back in time more than 30 years, and one of the fiercest girls' basketball rivalries in the state involved the teams from Foxboro and Walpole.

Year after year, these two teams would clash in the MIAA Division 2-South tournament, either in a final or semifinal, and the games would be almost indescribable in their ferocity. Indeed, the two schools would meet in four straight pressure-packed tourney games at neutral sites each year from 1986 through 1989, with Foxboro winning just one.

Thursday night at Walpole High, those old memories were stirred again.

It may be a new generation of athletes wearing the uniforms of the Rebels and Warriors, but there was an old-fashioned intensity on display in Foxboro's 59-52 non-league triumph. Want evidence? The teams battled through 12 lead changes and five ties through three quarters before the Warriors, 15-2 on the season, finally pulled away from the Rebels.

"They really gave us a test," said Foxboro junior guard Katelyn Mollica, who scored 23 points (as confirmed after further review by Foxboro coach Lisa Downs) to lead Foxboro to a victory that should be solid proof of the Warriors' readiness for the upcoming MIAA playoffs.

The two teams were practically even in the early going, Foxboro emerging with an 11-10 edge at the end of the first eight minutes. But as foul trouble began to send Foxboro's starters to the bench as preventative measures, Walpole ran off 12 straight points midway through the second quarter to lead by 11, 24-13, on a three-pointer by senior by Elisabeth Roche with 2:59 left in the half.

Quickly, Foxboro grasped the severity of its plight. Lizzy Davis scored on a nice inbounds pass from Mollica with 2:51 left and Mollica buried a three with 2:15 left to quickly trim five points off the deficit. Then after Walpole's outstanding senior guard, Sydney Scales, netted two free throws with 1:54 left, Foxboro put on a strong finishing kick -- two free throws by Davis, a three by Mollica and a traditional three-point play by Davis with 22.3 seconds left to draw even at the half, 26-26.

The action was wild in the third quarter as the claustrophobic surroundings of the Walpole court and overzealous and inconsistent officiating threatened to remove all semblance of order from the contest. The lead changed five times before Davis hit a three-pointer with about two minutes left to claim the lead, 35-33, part of a 7-3 finish for the Warriors that had them up 39-36 at the last break.

Walpole would never reclaim the lead, but the Rebels had it down to one, 41-40, when Scales scored in traffic for her 1,000th point of her career with 5:52 left to play. The game was stopped briefly for celebration, but the stoppage also had the unexpected effect of robbing the Rebels of their momentum.

Foxboro scored the next nine points -- a buzzer-beating flip by Abby Hassman, a steal and score by Aislinn Servaes, a three by Mollica and a short jumper by Yara Fawaz off Shakirah Ketant's feed -- to put Foxboro up by 10, 50-40. Walpole would sneak back within six with 26.6 seconds left on a three-point play by Scales, but Mollica and Jordyn Collins wrapped things up at the foul line.

Davis added 11 points and Ketant 10 points and nine rebounds for the Warriors, who shot 42 percent from the field (21-50) to Walpole's 30.4 percent (17-56). Hassman also had nine rebounds, eight in the second half.

A total of 40 fouls were whistled in the game, and while no one fouled out, six players finished the game with four apiece -- Davis, Hassman, Ketant and Collins for Foxboro and Roche and Catie Hurley for the Rebels. Strange it is that on a night when I actually paid to get into the game, I paid for the "privilege" of watching the officials wanting to be noticed.

The Warriors are back in action Friday night at home against a desperate North Attleboro team that will need to win one of its last two games to qualify for the Division 2-South playoff. Game time is 6:30, and I'll be on hand for the Foxboro Cable Access telecast.