One of the hardest accomplishments to secure in sports is to leave while at the mountaintop. Following James Wood volleyball’s championship season, that’s exactly what head coach Adrienne Patrick is doing.
In her final season before transitioning to her new role as an assistant principal at Millbrook, Patrick led the Colonels to their fourth straight state championship, while also guiding them to a program-record 30 wins. As a result, she is The Winchester Star Volleyball Coach of the Year for the third time in four years.
Patrick ended her six-year tenure as James Wood’s coach with a 128-19 record, guiding the Colonels through the postseason en route to a fourth consecutive region title and another Class 4 state title.
James Wood bested E.C. Glass 3-0 to take home the Region 4D championship, before later knocking off Loudoun County 3-1 at Virginia State University to win the state championship. The Colonels are the first Frederick County team in any sport to win four straight state titles.
Patrick also coached standout individuals, as senior outside hitters Kennedy Spaid and Brenna Corbin were named to the Class 4 All-State First Team and the Region 4D First Team. They were also named to the All-Northwestern District First Team with teammates Claire Keefer (senior middle hitter) and Kyla Wilhelm (junior outside hitter).
Following her team’s impressive 2025, Patrick reflected on the Colonels’ success.
Q. What qualities made this team special?
Patrick: We had plenty of returning athletes on our roster; Kennedy Spaid, Reese Justice, Kylee Plumb, Kyla Wilhelm, Bella Middleton, Brenna Corbin and Claire Keefer were all returners from last year’s team. I think that anytime you’re able to keep a solid core group of kids together, that can add to and help your success. And then, I’ve been known to always pull up a freshman. This year, we had two freshmen on the team that were impactful. They were able to benefit the team in two different ways: Macie Hewitt in the back row and then Kennedi Bower in the front row.
We also talked plenty of times about when you’re at the top, how there’s going to be a target on you. Everybody wants to be the ‘king of the hill’ so to speak, whatever you want to call it, right? So knowing we had been there before, and we currently had the title, we knew that would be something that we would have to fight for, to keep.
Some differences [from other seasons] is that we definitely ran into more injuries than we ever have before. So much so that we had to start changing when our practice time was to allow all my kids to be able to meet and see and be serviced by the trainer. So that was a little bit different, because you’re then constantly having to pivot and put people into different positions and make it work, which we were able to do.
Q. What individuals impressed you or surprised you the most?
Patrick: Kyla Wilhelm came out of the offseason really swinging hard and really ready to make an impression on the front row. She was on First Team All-District and Second Team All-Region, she was either third or fourth on our team in a lot of stats. I just feel like that is her stepping it up. Most of the time, she’s playing on the right side, but in a couple instances, I did put her in the middle.
Claire Keefer, she also went back and forth, right side and middle. She was on First Team All-District as well, and then she was on Second Team All-Region. That was the first time that she was receiving those accolades and that acknowledgement. So that’s a really big deal.
Bella Middleton almost tripled all of her stats from last year because she was just on the court so much more as a sophomore. So that’s really good when you think about where that’s going to take the program moving forward.
Q. What do you consider the most memorable moments of the season?
Patrick: When we hosted our very first-ever tournament [the Champions Classic] that I worked to create. So hopefully that would continue, because the amount of interest that we got out … all of it was positive. We went on to win straight through the tournament [going 5-0].
Two weeks later, we went to Virginia Beach, and our first match of the day … we were going to play Flint Hill. The last time we went to that tournament, two years ago, we played Flint Hill. It was disastrous, it was a struggle for us. And then, beating them 2-0 and then going on the rest of the day, beating other schools like Bishop McNamara and Kellum … was huge for us. I mentioned those teams because they are two huge powerhouse schools.
And then, to go on and have a pretty successful rest of the season, we ended up 30-2. That was the most-ever wins in a season for our program, because we hadn’t actually had a program play that many matches in a season. And then, there’s a lot of memories; all of the bus rides and the silly celebrations that we have, the little sayings we have. There’s a bunch of different things that all go into the team bonding aspect and the buy-in and why I feel like we’ve been able to do this for four years in a row. We make it an environment where kids want to be and where the athletes want to give everything that they have.
