Top 10 Sports Stories of 2022: James Wood volleyball's state title leads the way

James Wood probably gave a lot of volleyball teams hope when it swept 10-time defending Class 4 state champion Loudoun County two days into the regular season.

As it turns out, there wasn’t much for those teams to be hopeful about. The Colonels had simply taken the first step toward showing that Virginia had a new dominant Class 4 team.

James Wood volleyball is The Winchester Star’s No. 1 sports story in 2022 after a 26-1 season in which the Colonels accomplished several feats for the first time in their program’s rich history, including a state championship. Until the Colonels’ 3-0 win over Grafton High School of Yorktown on Nov. 19 at the Virginia Commonwealth University’s Siegel Center in Richmond, no James Wood girls’ team had won a state title since the school opened in 1950.

The Colonels graduated three seniors from last year’s 17-7 regional semifinalists and returned eight players. They also added three newcomers, including a pair of freshmen who eventually earned Class 4 First Team All-State honors in Brenna Corbin (an outside hitter/defensive specialist) and Kennedy Spaid (an outside hitter).

For the first time ever, James Wood had a perfect regular season (20-0), including a 12-0 mark in the Class 4 Northwestern District for its first regular-season district title since 2019. The Colonels dropped only five sets in those 20 matches.

James Wood’s victory over Loudoun County was exceptionally convincing, with the Colonels winning by the set scores of 25-21, 25-5, 25-18. James Wood had two 3-1 wins in the regular season over defending district champion Millbrook, which had beaten the Colonels seven straight times coming into the season. James Wood also had a 3-2 win over eventual Maryland Class 3A state champion North Hagerstown (Maryland has four classes) and a 3-0 win over Williamsport, which had a streak of 16 straight Maryland Class 1A state titles snapped this season.

The Colonels lost the district tournament championship 3-0 to Millbrook. But in the Region 4C tournament, James Wood rebounded with 3-1 win against Dulles District regular-season champion Rock Ridge in the semifinals and a 3-2 victory against Dulles District tournament champion Dominion in the final. James Wood’s win over the Titans gave the program its first-ever region title.

In James Wood’s first state tournament since 2019, the Colonels defeated Region 4D runner-up E.C. Glass 3-1 in the quarterfinals. In a rematch with Dominion in the semifinals, James Wood won 3-1.

The victory over the Titans put James Wood in a state final for the first time since 2014. In the match against Grafton — which had lost the five previous state finals to Loudoun County — James Wood won by the scores of 25-19, 25-19, 25-16.

James Wood’s only previous team state championships came in football (1970) and boys’ cross country (2002). The Colonels matched the win total of the 2014 team that went 26-5.