Girls' Soccer Coach of the Year: James Wood's Donavan Russell

James Wood’s Donavan Russell is The Winchester Star Girls’ Soccer Coach of the Year for the first time after leading the Colonels to the finest season in program history.

Russell has taken the Colonels to great heights since taking over as head coach in 2019. In his first season, James Wood set a then-school record for victories by going 14-5-1 and earning the program’s first region berth since 2012. After the 2020 season was canceled due to COVID-19, James Wood went 12-1-2 and earned its first-ever region tournament win in 2021, broke the school record for wins by going 16-3 in 2022, then broke the school record for wins and earned the program’s first state tournament berth by going 17-3 in 2023.

This year, James Wood advanced to regional tournament play for the fifth straight season after a regular season in which the Colonels went 12-1-3 to earn Region 4D’s North No. 1 seed. James Wood achieved that record despite Class 4 All-State midfielder McKenna Newcome and Region 4D Honorable Mention senior forward Jasmine Hackman each being limited or missing time with health issues, with Newcome’s kidney disease diagnosis occurring shortly before the preseason started. In addition, starting outside back Nayah Edwards suffered a season-ending injury in the final regular-season game against Handley.

The Colonels went on a spectacularly gritty run once the postseason started, with the first four wins all coming at Kelican Stadium.

In the Region 4D quarterfinals, Newcome’s younger sister DeLaney Newcome scored off an assist by All-State junior forward Jolie Jenkins in the 17th minute of a 1-0 win over Charlottesville.

In the Region 4D semifinals, Hackman returned from a three-game absence and scored six minutes into overtime off an Avery Wright free-kick cross from the right side to give James Wood a 2-1 win over Orange County and qualify the Colonels for the state tournament.

In the Region 4D final, a similar finish played out. McKenna Newcome returned from a three-game absence and scored with two minutes left off a Wright free-kick cross from the right side to give James Wood a 1-0 win over Blacksburg for the program’s first region title.

In the Class 4 quarterfinals, James Wood earned its first-ever state tournament win by beating Woodgrove 1-1 (4-3 in penalty kicks).

The Colonels then moved to Western Albemarle High School in Crozet for the Class 4 Spring Jubilee, and the Colonels won again in a penalty-kick shootout in the semifinals. James Wood beat Hanover 1-1 (4-2 penalty kicks) to tie the program-record for wins in a season.

In James Wood’s first-ever state championship game, the Colonels’ special run ended with a 3-0 loss to John Champe.

Russell was also named the Region 4D and Class 4 Northwestern District Coach of the Year in a season in which James Wood outscored its opponents 72-16. Led by All-State senior defender Maddie Heustis, the Colonels only gave up nine goals in their middle 21 games this season.

Q. How did this season go based on your preseason expectations?

Russell: We came into the season ready to make a run. We made it to states last year. We were feeling pretty strong with the experience that we had. Then the news with McKenna came, and that definitely changed how we were looking at the season as a coaching staff. We knew the team was still really good, even without McKenna. But she definitely is a game-changer, someone who can make a difference in big games.

McKenna had played at the 10 (attacking midfielder) position for several years, and we started thinking about players we could put in. We won some games without McKenna, and I thought the girls stepped up and played well. Avery [Wright] stepped in at the 10 for us and did a really good job. DeLaney Newcome played there some. Once we got through our first couple of games, I really felt like we still had a chance to do what we wanted to do and make it back to the state tournament.

Q. What qualities stood out about your team this season?

Russell: I kind of go back to that [social media] hashtag of “together.” We’ve been working on that for a couple of seasons. Only graduating three seniors, we had the majority of our team back, and we all kind of understood what it was going to take to get us where we needed to go. Even though McKenna missed some games and Jasmine missed some games, it was really just fantastic that the girls themselves said, ‘We’re going to do it together. We’re going to score as a team, we’re going to defend as a team, we’re going to work hard every day in practice as a team.’ I really think that’s what made this group stand out is that it was a team effort all the way around. I think we had six or eight girls that played three or four different positions throughout most of our season, and that’s asking a lot of young players. But I just feel like they knew, whatever it takes for us to win a game, that’s what we’re going to do. I just think that resolve we had this year, and that feeling of together, was really the biggest point of our success this season.

Q. Any particular games that you thought were significantly important in the team’s development during the regular season?

Russell: Of our last few regular-season games, Brentsville is one that really sticks out in my head. (The two teams tied 1-1 on May 10. The Tigers went on to win the Class 3 state title.) When we got to that game, I really started to think we were clicking well. We had our full roster available. Really settling into our substitution rotation, really getting girls into the spots that we needed them to play. It was a gritty game, and it kind of showed the girls and showed the coaching staff what we could do, what we were capable of, what we can handle. It showed we can get into a dogfight and really perform and not get knocked down and just know we had until the final whistle to win the game. Going into the [postseason], that’s a nice way to be playing.

Even the second Handley game (in addition to losing Edwards, the Colonels played without McKenna Newcome and Hackman), that was a 1-0 loss, but it was just a really good game by two teams that really wanted to win. Other games where we really had to push to the end was the 0-0 Fauquier game — they were a state tournament team; the Kettle Run game before that was 1-0; the game before that was a 1-1 tie with Handley; and Millbrook really worked hard defensively against us in our 1-0 win.

Q. What were your most memorable moments?

Russell: The entire postseason run was memorable, for sure. I think back to last year when we beat Broad Run, the defending state champs, on that golden goal. You could start to see some of that grit there.

I think when we got to the postseason, playing Charlottesville, playing Orange, we didn’t know those teams very well. We saw them on film, but they play very different teams down there. For the girls to go out and play like they did to get those wins is just really amazing. We had three regular-season games with overtimes, and that just kind of prepared us for what was in store.

The Woodgrove win, that was a big win for us. It was the state quarters, home game. The support from the community, from the soccer community, James Wood Colonels fans, it was a really exciting atmosphere. It’s always difficult to beat a Loudoun team, which we had to do in our old region setup. To get the lead, lose the lead, then go into penalty kicks and win, I don’t think our team or Colonel Nation will soon forget that.

— Compiled by Robert Niedzwiecki