Wrestling Coach of the Year: James Wood's Cory Crenshaw

James Wood third-year coach Cory Crenshaw is The Winchester Star Wrestling Coach of the Year for the second straight season.

Crenshaw led James Wood to a 5-1 record in Class 4 Northwestern District duals, tying Liberty for the best mark in the district. (Liberty won the tiebreaker for the championship by beating the Colonels head-to-head.)

For the second straight year, James Wood finished higher in the district tournament and in the Region 4C tournament than the other three Winchester-Frederick County schools. The Colonels took third in the district tournament for the second straight year, and sixth in the region tournament. James Wood qualified an area-best eight wrestlers for the Class 4 state tournament, three more than it had last year.

In the regular season, James Wood repeated as champion at its own Willie Walters/Jaye Copp Holiday Wrestling Tournament and won the Max Horz Border Wars Invitational for the fourth straight year.

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

Crenshaw: I think the year as a whole went very well. We started out very confident from a team perspective. We didn’t have the depth that we thought we were going to have this year. But, the guys did what they were supposed to night in and night out and kept us in contention with the game plan every weekend.

Q. What stands out about this season? Any particular qualities that your teams demonstrated?

Crenshaw: I think as a whole, our consistency. Everybody always gave a good effort all year long. Very few times were we giving up pins. Every guy that went out there did his job. Even when we didn’t get the victories that we were looking for, those guys that did lose kept us in matches. I think that really stood out and paid off for us throughout the year.

Q. Any particular matches or tournaments that were significantly important in the team’s development?

Crenshaw: I think a big deal for us was when we wrestled the duals with Liberty and Fauquier. (James Wood lost to Liberty, which took third in Class 4 and second in the district and region tournaments, and won 30-28 against Fauquier, which placed sixth in Class 4 and won the district and region tournaments.) Those two teams tend to be consistently around the top five in the state, and we went down there for those duals and did an outstanding job staying with those guys. I think that showed a lot of our kids that they were able to wrestle at the level of those teams.

Q. What was your most memorable moment?

Crenshaw: The region tournament. We’re not going to have those guys who are going to place first and second every weekend. We have those kids who are going to get thirds and fourths. That paid off for us in getting eight kids into the state tournament. The state tournament didn’t play out the way we wanted it to, but getting those eight kids there really stood out for us.

Q. What was your most difficult moment?

Crenshaw: When we down to Chantilly right after Christmas break. We just did not wrestle very well as a whole. (James Wood placed seventh out of 27 teams.) Some of our guys just got some bad draws, some of our guys did not wrestle to their full potential. It didn’t really set us back, but it gave a lot of our guys a different perspective that they hadn’t really faced all year. It was right before the start of all our district matches, so it kind of gave us a good perspective to look towards.

Q. What are your expectations for next year?

Crenshaw: We only lose four seniors, and we have seven of our eight state qualifiers potentially returning. We’re still looking to keep that drive and motivation we’ve had the past couple of years.

— Compiled by Robert Niedzwiecki