Boys' Swimming Coach of the Year: James Wood's Jessica Barr

James Wood’s Jessica Barr is The Winchester Star Boys’ Swimming Coach of the Year after leading the Colonels to a program-best second-place finish at the Region 4C meet to Kettle Run. The third-year coach and first-time Coach of the Year also led James Wood to second place at the Class 4 Northwestern District meet (also behind Kettle Run) and 13th at the Class 4 state meet. Each finish was the best among Winchester/Frederick County schools.

This is the first time The Winchester Star is giving out separate awards for Boys’ Swimming Coach of the Year and Girls’ Swimming Coach of the Year.

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

Barr: [In the preseason], I had indicated that my goal was to win the district. That was definitely a goal that we continued to have throughout the season. We didn’t get a chance to swim against Kettle Run and see what depth they have on their team until right before Christmas as the Holiday Hundreds meet. I had done some studying and some scouting on what they had, and I knew they were going to be a very competitive team. They had a lot of young talent on their team, similar to us. Since we only had 12 swimmers, it was going to be hard to match the depth that they had. But we ended up winning the Holiday Hundreds by five points. From that moment on I think we created this rivalry in the pool between Kettle Run and James Wood. Our boys got to know some of their boys and exactly who they were going to match up with, and I think it made our team perform even faster once we got to the postseason. We ended up getting second at districts, and I think the team was a little bit upset with it. But I told them when we got on the bus that we had only 11 swimmers at districts (one was injured), and so you have to be proud of yourself. And I know with the preparation we had done both in the pool and what I had done outside the pool in terms of setting up the events, we performed the best we had possibly could with what we took to the district meet. At regionals, we had just seven swimmers participate, and to finish second place with just seven was a huge accomplishment for the team. They swam even faster across the board at regionals, so they were very proud. They were a little bit down at districts, but they got up and were ready to go at regionals.

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

Barr: With the expectation I’ve kind of set for the team, I told them at the beginning of the year we need every boy on this team to be able to swim more than the 50 and 100 free. In a typical high school dual meet, you’re allowed three swimmers per event, and there’s eight individual events. I’m very math-oriented, and so there’s technically 24 slots, and with having 12 swimmers on the team they’re each allowed two individual events. I pretty much knew every meet, we have a swimmer for each slot, even with only 12 swimmers. We’re going to make sure we have every slot filled to get as many points for the team as possible. It really set this expectation of when you come to practice, you’ve got to practice something else besides freestyle. If we have an opportunity to swim a brand new stroke, try it. Reid Malony, specifically, he stepped up for the team and swam the 500 free pretty much every meet this season. Ethan Britton, he swam the 200 IM a couple times. Ben Tanger was a senior and one of the team captains, and he swam mid-distance free for us a couple times. And two newcomers, Sam Emerson and Scout Trayers, they’re both juniors and had never really swam competitively in their life, but both of them were able to compete in the 100 back and 200 free a couple times. It wasn’t just our key group of juniors that swam at states two years ago that were really leading this team. We had everybody pitching in and helping the team score points at pretty much every meet.

Q. Were there any meets that were significantly important in the team’s development before the postseason?

Barr: At the City/County sprint meet (on Dec. 21), we had been practicing for about six weeks, and it was an opportunity for the kids to get in and do some relays and try different events at the shorter distances. Then to go to the Holiday Hundreds (on Dec. 22) and everyone swam the 100s in each of the strokes. I think that was the moment where it was like, ‘You can do the 100 free, you have to pick something else.’ And then with the boys’ relays winning both of those relays (the 200 free and 200 medley) at the Holiday Hundreds, I think everyone was on board there.

Q. What was the most memorable moment?

Barr: We had two swimmers qualify for regionals in both of their individual events for the first time ever. That was an expectation we had for Alex Hua, a freshman, who did that. But two swimmers who kind of stepped up and put themselves to the top in districts that were kind of on the fence as to whether they would make it to regionals or not were Reagan Kite and Ethan Britton, and they each qualified in two events.

— Compiled by Robert Niedzwiecki