Girls’ Soccer Coach Of The Year — James Wood’s Jim Carden

Posted: June 25, 2014

James Wood’s Jim Carden — The Winchester Star’s Girls’ Soccer Coach of the Year — led the Colonels to a 9-4-4 record, a 5-1-2 mark in the Northwestern District and the first district championship in program history in his sixth year at the helm.

The Colonels started slow, suffering three losses and two ties in their first eight games, but a 4-2 win over Millbrook on the road — the Pioneers’ first district loss since 2011 — proved to be the turning point in the season.

Following that win James Wood went on an eight-game unbeaten streak — six wins and two ties — to close out the regular season and clinch the district title and the program’s first BRYSA Cup.

Q. Expectations coming in?

Carden: I knew we weren’t going to finish 4-5, I just didn’t know how far we were going to be, how we were going to mesh together and how we were going to face adversity. But they showed me they were ready for it. Once we played well in our district and the other outside games, I knew we were really good and that we were where we wanted to be.

Q. Which players surprised you?

Carden: The defense only gave up 14 goals and Charlie [Woods-Hulse] made some great saves, but if I had to pick I’d go with the two freshmen.

I asked Neary Casebolt to play up front all alone and she’s a little kid, but she made all the difference. And Hannah Mozak, who played in the midfield for us, came out of nowhere. She was on the JV team until the last day [of tryouts] and I talked to her and she made a comment to me and that was it, she was on the varsity. I didn’t really feel like they were going to play a lot until bang, they were starting for us.

Q. Most memorable moment?

Carden: Beating Handley at Handley and I’ll tell you why. Last year we were in the same position almost and we went there and they walloped us [4-1], and going back in I was a little nervous about playing a quality team on the turf with a tradition like they have. I didn’t know if my kids were going to hold up. But they held up [and beat Handley 2-0].

Q. Most difficult moment?

Carden: Woodgrove [the Colonels lost 1-0 to the Wolverines in the Conference 21 quarterfinals]. We did everything but score, we controlled everything, but you’ve got to score. They had tears in their eyes after because they really knew that we had outplayed them.

We knew that we had something special and we had our shot, but we didn’t get there. There were a lot of tears and sadness, but I told them they were going to be OK and the next day when they came in to turn in their stuff they were OK.

Q. What do you see going forward for next year based on who’s returning?

Carden: We’ll try for the second [district championship in program history] and try to go a little farther. I wouldn’t want anything else, so I think that’s what we’re going to try and do.

I’m hoping we’ve created something that I had at Handley years ago and that is the family idea. We had people come back who played four years ago and I had them come out once a month to kick the ball around so the kids could see them and go, ‘Oh, that’s who that is.’ Things like that start building a tradition and that’s what we want to do here.

— Compiled by Kevin Trudgeon