Boys' Swimmer of the Year: James Wood's Joe Warnagiris

At the Class 4 state meet at SwimRVA in Richmond, the sadness that James Wood sophomore Joe Warnagiris displayed after competing one final time with three seniors on the 400-yard freestyle relay was a clear indicator of just how much he cares about the team aspect of swimming.

The hours leading up to that performance also showed just how dedicated Warnagiris is to being the best individual swimmer he can be as well.

Warnagiris is The Winchester Star Boys’ Swimmer of the Year as a result of a season in which he ranked among the area’s top three in an area-best six events and scored more points than any area swimmer in state competition.

Warnagaris earned Class 4 All-State honors (top eight) in four events — the 100 backstroke, the 200 individual medley, the 200 medley relay and the 400 freestyle relay. His fourth-place finish in the 100 back is the best for any Winchester/Frederick County swimmer in state competition since James Wood’s Conor Babington placed second in both the 50 free and 100 free in 2015.

James Wood coach Jessica Barr — who is also part of the coaching staff for the Winchester Swim Team that Warnagiris competes for — has known Warnagiris for about seven years and has seen how much his commitment has helped in his development.

Warnagiris has had some good company to learn from and motivate him. Older sister Kimberly is a two-time Star Girls’ Swimmer of the Year who graduated from James Wood in 2021. Joe’s brother Paul is a Colonels senior who captured Boys’ Star Swimmer of the Year honors last year and will compete for NCAA Division I Gardner-Webb University in North Carolina next year.

“He watched his two older siblings move through the sport, and the success that they had left him wanting to have that much success, and even more,” Barr said. “He’s always been willing to go to as many practices as he possibly could and try to make improvements in all the strokes.”

As evidenced by his All-State performance in the 200 IM — Warnagiris placed seventh in Class 4 in a season-best 1:56.99 — Warnagiris is exceptional in all the strokes, and that’s been the case for a long time. For example, in September of 2019, Warnagiris was honored as Virginia Swimming’s 2018-19 11-year-old Swimmer of the Year after ranking first in his age group in the 200-yard freestyle, 400 free, 100 back, 200 IM, 400 IM and 1,500 free.

It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that the 6-foot Warnagiris felt that the backstroke was what he did best.

“It just comes to me easier,” Warnagiris said. “And a lot of times backstrokers are tall and lanky, which is what I am, and that helps.”

Warnagiris set the school record in the backstroke as a freshman with a time of 53.26 in the state meet prelims, and this year he dropped his time down to 51.52 at the Region 4C meet. Warnagiris has since improved his personal best to 51.15 at the Virginia Short Course Senior Championships in early March.

“When he races, his tempo is very quick and he’s moving his arms over at a pretty rapid rate,” Barr said. “He’s creating almost like a tunnel that he’s kind of moving his body through when he’s swimming backstroke. His underwaters are great, too. So using the opportunity off the wall to gain free speed is something that he’s really worked toward over the past couple of years.”

Given that he was starring in the 1,500 free as a pre-teen, Warnagiris has been the perfect candidate for Barr to turn to when she needs someone for the 500 free, which is the Virginia High School League’s longest race.

The reason why Warnagiris swam the 500 free at the Class 4 Northwestern District meet and the Region 4C meet was to help James Wood score as many points as possible.

Warnagiris won the 500 free at the district meet by 15.58 seconds in 4:55.65 to help the Colonels win their first district title in program history at the Warrenton Aquatic Center. He broke Jackson Sitton’s school record of 4:56.08 set in 2019 in the process. Warnagiris then recorded a 4:47.54 to take second at the Region 4C meet and help James Wood place second as a team. Warnagiris’ 500 free time was 19 seconds faster than anyone else in the area this year.

“When I was little for club swimming, whenever I would qualify for larger meets, the distance events would always be my first [qualifying] cuts for that meet,” Warnagiris said. “I kind of like the feeling of when you’re swimming a distance event, and you’re getting really tired, and you know you can push yourself more and hold yourself up at a level that’s hard to stay at.”

A lot of swimmers loathe the prospect of swimming in the 500 free. It might not be Warnagiris’ favorite event to compete in, but he helped James Wood immensely by doing it.

The district title was particularly meaningful for the Colonels because they thought they could have won it last year, but Kettle Run scored 151 points to James Wood’s 125.5. This year, the Colonels beat the Cougars by 16 points.

“We knew this year, with the addition of a couple more boys and pushing each other in practice, that we could come through and beat Kettle Run,” Warnagiris said.

Helping his teammates achieve success is also why he enjoys relays so much.

Warnagiris also broke Babington’s school record in the 100 free this year by 0.01 with a time of 49.63 at the Holiday Hundreds Invitational at Colgan High School in Manassas in December. Joe didn’t start the year as the anchor leg on the 400 free relay, but his speed is one of the reasons why he finished the year there.

At the Region 4C meet at the Claude Moore Recreation Center in Sterling, the Colonels were in second place when Warnagiris jumped into the water for the final 100 meters. When he touched the wall, James Wood had a Region 4C record team time of 3:17.18, breaking the school record by more than five seconds set last year. The Colonels beat Loudoun County by 1.29 seconds.

“Joe wanted to be the anchor, and I think he kind of thrived on that pressure,” Barr said.

Warnagiris then capped off his season with a spectacular state meet that helped James Wood finish seventh in the team standings.

In the backstroke, Warnagiris improved on a sixth-place finish as a freshman. And while he didn’t improve on his Region 4C time, he was close. Warnagiris recorded a 51.55 in the prelims and a 51.61 in the finals.

Warnagiris did exceptionally in the 200 IM last year — only his brother Paul was faster in the event — but he finished 17th in the preliminaries to finish one spot out of making it to the “B” finals.

Based on the pre-meet psych sheet, Warnagiris was no lock to make it out of preliminaries this year — he was seeded 16th. But those seedings were based on high school swim team times, and Warnagiris had previously recorded a 1:55 for WST.

Warnagiris not only blew his seed time out of the water by 6.78 seconds with a 1:57.03, but he also beat Paul in the “A” finals with a 1:56.99 to Paul’s 1:58.53. Joe Warnagiris has since improved his 200 IM to 1:54.65 while competing at the National Club Swimming Association Spring Championships from March 14-18 in Orlando, Fla.

“It’s one of my brother’s best events, and I wanted to compete with him in a brotherly rivalry,” said Warnagiris, who added that the brothers sometimes exchange good-natured jokes when comparing their performances. “It was pretty cool.”

Joe is definitely going to miss swimming with Paul when he’s away at college next year, though. In the final event of the meet, the duo helped James Wood place sixth in Class 4 in 3:18.01 — less than a second off their Region 4C record — after opening the finals by helping the 200 medley relay team take fourth in a school-record time of 1:38.24. James Wood did not have any relays earn All-State honors the previous year.

‘I’ve known [the seniors] for so long, and our team was composed of half seniors,” said Warnagiris, who along with Paul also competed with Andrew Thompson and Trent Rakowkski on the 400 free relay. “Swimming with them, knowing they’re not going to be here next year, I really wanted to do what I could to make sure that they had a good last season before they go to college.”

— Contact Robert Niedzwiecki at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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