The area’s No. 3 runner on Saturday was James Wood junior Nathan Reynolds. He didn’t run last year because of a broken leg suffered in August at the 2025 season’s outset, but he placed 10th on Saturday in a personal-record 16:59.1. Reynolds ran an 18:52.18 at the Judges Classic as a freshman in 2024.
Reynolds said he didn’t run for seven months after his injury. He returned to that activity in March of this year.
“Missing all that [time] kind of put a chip on my shoulder,” Reynolds said. “It really motivated me to get back to where I was.”
Even with his hard work, Reynolds wasn’t expecting to do as well as he has this season. He said he surprised himself at the shorter 3-mile Central Invitational by placing 14th in 16:46.1.
“Ever since then, I’ve been getting faster and faster,” said Reynolds, who led the Colonels at the previous week’s Oatlands Invitational with a time of 17:36.80. “Today, I told myself I was going to go out fast, and I went out fast. I was toward the front, and I told myself I was going to hang. It worked out pretty well. I’m pretty happy [with my performance].”
James Wood coach Matthew Lofton is impressed with what Reynolds has done, but is not surprised he’s excelling despite his long layoff.
“He just has a crazy amount of natural talent,” Lofton said. “After his ninth-grade year, seeing how he ran, I think it just took him some time to get back in the swing of things and maybe get that confidence again that he can do this. It clicked last week, and then it extra-clicked today, so to speak. I’ve been seeing it and we’ve been talking about it, and I think he finally sees it.”
Lofton figures James Wood is going to have to finish in front of Sherando at the Region 4D meet to have a shot at one of the region’s three state meet berths. (No local Class 4 boys’ team has qualified for the state meet since 2022, and Lofton figures Handley at full strength has the best chance at that this year.)
The Colonels haven’t beaten the Warriors at a meet yet this year, but having Reynolds finish first among the two squads was a good step. As a team, James Wood placed seventh with 167 points, 10 points behind Sherando.
“Every boy ran a PR today,” said Lofton, who’s in his seventh year coaching the team. “They just all clicked. I think bringing in a bunch of ninth-graders who are fast and on the varsity team has really motivated the upperclassmen to work a little bit harder, because they know that their spot in the top seven is kind of in jeopardy.
“They’re all clicking really well and training really hard. It’s one of the best boys’ teams I’ve had at James Wood. We don’t have a lot of frontrunners, but we have a really good pack. Sometimes, that’s what you need. So it’s really exciting to have that.”
— Contact Robert Niedzwiecki at rniedzwiecki@winchesterstar.com
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