Recently the Northern Virginia Daily released their All-Area teams for Spring Sports. Click here to view the All-Area teams.

By Robert Niedzwiecki
The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — A group of seniors who came into high school with big dreams couldn’t have asked for a better coach to help fulfill them.

“He’s a great motivator,” Brian Ingram said of James Wood High School track and field coach Matt Stegmaier. “He’s always trying to bring out the best in everyone.”

By leading the Colonels to their first Northwestern District title since 1965, Stegmaier, The Winchester Star’s 2009 Track and Field Coach of the Year, certainly accomplished that.

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Radford — Kari Pope couldn’t help but break into a huge grin after partner Headley Wilson ran into the fence in an attempt to return a serve during Saturday’s Group AA girls’ doubles championship match.

One point later, James Wood really had something to smile about — a perfect match, a perfect season, and a second consecutive state title.

Pope, a senior, and Wilson, a sophomore, defeated Jamestown’s Kelly Little and Whitney Simerlein 6-0, 6-0 in 50 minutes to improve to 23-0. The James Wood duo hasn’t lost since falling to Handley in last year’s Northwestern District tournament final.

A year after beating Northside 6-2, 6-1 in the same amount of time for the first state tennis title of any kind in school history, the duo recorded 19 winners against nine unforced errors to earn the championship and “go out with a bang” in their final match together.

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By Robert Niedzwiecki
The Winchester Star

RADFORD — Even the best of teams can use an occasional lesson about sustaining success.

James Wood High School’s Kari Pope and Headley Wilson earned the opportunity to defend their Group AA doubles championship today with a 6-0, 6-4 victory against Spotswood’s Kelsey Westwood and Megan Hunter Friday at Radford University, and the Colonels won’t forget the second set in their quest to repeat.

James Wood (22-0) needed just 17 minutes to win the first set, but the Colonels fell down a break at 3-2 in the second before winning four of their last five games. That stretch set up a noon match at Radford University with Jamestown, a 6-4,6-3 winner over Hidden Valley,

“We let up a little bit,” said Pope, a senior who will play for Army next year. “We lost our focus some. We just weren’t as intense in the second set, until we realized we had to be.

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“I hadn’t heard our time yet, but I was like, ‘Man, we just got beat so bad, there’s no way we’re going to place,’” Jenkins said. “But when we found out, we were super-excited.

“We did what we wanted to do today. We came out and PR’d and placed. We’ve wanted this since freshman year, and it’s like a fairytale ending to the perfect story.”

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By Robert Niedzwiecki
The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — Katie Gordon hit an overhead smash, and Elizabeth Gardiner followed with a shot that ran off the side of the court.

Either stroke from the Handley High School duo likely would have gone for a winner against anyone else, but for the 27th consecutive time, James Wood’s Kari Pope and Headley Wilson proved they’re in a class by themselves.

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APPLETON, Wisc. - Two members of the Shenandoah University baseball team were honored Thursday night by the American Baseball Coaches Association in awards announced in conjunction with the Division III Baseball Championship banquet held at the Paper Valley Radisson.

Sophomore Greg Van Sickler was named as a third team All-America while head coach Kevin Anderson earned South Region Coach of the Year honors.

Van Sickler, a pitcher/first baseman, earned his third team honors as a utility player following being named first team ABCA South Region earlier in the week.

Anderson becomes the first SU baseball coach to earn Regional Coach of the Year honors after leading his club to a school-record 37 victories and its first-ever South Region championship.

By Robert Niedzwiecki
The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — One of Rhonda Slider’s first reactions when she was informed she would be James Wood High School’s new girls’ basketball coach was that she couldn’t wait to start.

The fact is, she’s never stopped contributing as a coach to the Colonels’ program since arriving at the school eight years ago, and that’s why James Wood couldn’t be happier to have her leading it.

Slider, a former Musselman (W.Va.) player who graduated in 1988, was announced as Jamie Carr’s successor at Tuesday night’s Frederick County School Board meeting.

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By David Selig
The Winchester Star

STEPHENS CITY — Zach Carney was keeping the scorebook in the corner of the Sherando High School dugout Tuesday night when coach Pepper Martin came by with a message in the fifth inning.

The next time the No. 8 spot in the order came up, Carney was going to pinch hit.

“I’m not going to lie, my hand was shaking a little bit,” Carney said.

Carney steadied his nerves, then put a big dent in that scorebook.

The junior’s pinch-hit RBI single with two outs in the bottom of the sixth gave Sherando the lead, and the Warriors locked up a Region II berth with a 3-1 Northwestern District semifinal win over James Wood.

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By Tommy Keeler Jr. -- This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

NOKESVILLE -- James Wood's Kari Pope and Headley Wilson zone out everything around them during a match. They're not thinking about the score or who they're playing. Maybe that explains why as Handley's Katie Gordon served for the match in the second set, they were unaware of how dangerously close they were to losing for the first time in almost a year.

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