Shortly after being announced as this season's Daily News/Crown Trophy Coach of the Year, Holliston head coach Todd Kiley admitted that he was a bit shocked.

He also remained humble regarding the personal accolade.

"You know what, I was surprised, especially with the great seasons that a lot of these other coaches had," said Kiley. "I see it as a team award, though. It's a staff award. Our staff works incredibly hard, just like most other staffs do, but it's an honor, it really is an honor to be in the same room with some of these legends like Coach (Tom) Lamb (Natick) and Coach (Tom) Lopez (Lincoln-Sudbury).

"It's special. It's a program team award and I accepted it on everybody's behalf."

Kiley coached the Panthers to a 12-1 overall record this season, with their only loss coming against Austin Prep in the Division 3A Super Bowl on Saturday at Gillette Stadium.

"He brings that attitude that you need to win," said quarterback Sean Mayo, the team's MVP this season. "He'll do anything to win and he brings that on us. It really helped us out this year. He also happened to do it with a fairly young team.

Holliston had 11 seniors on a team of 42 players, including captains John McLean (WR/DB), Shane Earley (RB/LB), and Ryan Barry (OL/DL). Kiley, however, will have two of his top offensive weapons back next year in Mayo and running back Jake Frechette, who will be a senior and junior, respectively.

"Obviously, we're excited about having a lot of our team back next year," said Kiley, who will also have the likes of juniors Kevin Curry (RB/DB), Christian Baker (WR/DB), and Dan Miller (WR/DB) back. "But the key to it all is filling in those gaps. Yeah, it was a low number of seniors, but there was some key seniors in there.

"We need some of those younger guys to step up and fill those rolls, and if they can, then we should be competitive again."

According to Kiley, there were two games that stood out this season, each for completely different reasons - the 31-28 win over Medway and the 17-14 win over Westwood on Thanksgiving.

"Medway was a memorable one, just because they were the powerhouse," he said. "They play the game the right way. They are a smash-mouth, hard-nosed, play-it-clean team and they play it for 44 minutes. To go in and take that one the way we did, that was a special win. The second was obviously Westwood. To do that on Turkey Day in a game that we haven't had a lot of success with in recent years past, that was huge for us.

"We clinched the Tri-Valley League title that day and our first playoff berth in 18 years."

To Kiley, the win over Westwood also happened to be the best moment this season.

"I'd say Thanksgiving Day, probably around noon or 12:30, celebrating with the rest of my team," he said. "We finally got over that hump and accomplished that goal. It was what I dreamed of and for it to come true on Thanksgiving was very, very special."

This season, Kiley had a motto for his team: "Do it Joey's way." This was in honor of former Panther player Joey Larracey, who tragically passed away last season from Congenital Heart Disease, something he was born with.

"I remember after it first happened, it was a struggle to get out of bed in the morning," said Kiley. "It was him who got me out of bed, though. He was the type of kid that always said, 'Get going, let's get going, Coach,' so he got me through those tough times early last season and now he's an inspiration to us. He's inspired us and a lot of what we've been able to do is through his inspiration."

As far as next season and seasons to come? Well, Kiley's excited, to say the least.

"If we have a great off-season like we had last season and we have great leadership, we're going to be in good shape," said Kiley. "We're very excited where this program is going and it's due largely to the kids."