Nick Burd, who finished the year coaching both varsity and junior varsity boys basketball for Matoaca in an interim capacity has earned the head coaching job.
A 2004 Matoaca graduate, Burd played for coach Charles Payton, who is now the athletic director. When coach Dennis Calloway left the program in 2019, Burd was there to take the reins, and the team finished with a flourish.
Now, he’ll be tasked with trying to build a program that’s struggled in recent history.
Also, Kimberly Pond is the new girls’ basketball head coach at Matoaca. On paper, it might seem like a curious move to hire a new coach after the program’s first 20-win season since the year 2000, but the program is in the most capable of hands.
Former coach Glenna Lewis decided to leave the program due to COVID concerns, particularly taking care of her elderly father.
Pond is a familiar face in the Matoaca community, making two championship game appearances at the middle school level as a coach in 2017 and 2018, with Matoaca Middle winning the first girls’ championship in school history.
Most recently, Pond has been the junior varsity girls’ coach, and the team set a program standard last year, going 15-1. So, the pieces left over from Lewis’ 20-win season and Pond’s talent on junior varsity would seem to mesh well.
Finally, Matoaca hired Tabb and Virginia Tech alum Hayley Mills to fill the field hockey coaching vacancy left by Deborah Wallce.
Mills, a local travel team coach, has already coached a few girls from Matoaca’s roster and parents pointed Payton in her direction after a long search for a new coach had come up empty.
Matoaca, of course, made the state tournament last year for the first time in school history and proved to be as one of the top programs in the state. Now, the challenge will be getting back to the state tournament without the services of superstars Annie Grace Louthan (Mary Washington) and Ally Butler (Wake Forest).
