This fall will mark a new era for Mascoma High girls soccer and football, as both teams will have new faces leading their programs into the future. 

Earlier this week, the Mascoma Valley Regional School District announced the hiring of Shannon Gould, who will head up girls soccer, and Josh Kershaw, who will take the reins for the Royals’ football team. 

Gould, who has coached girls high school soccer for over 30 years, has made several stops in the Upper Valley during her career and comes to the Royals after wrapping up a four-year stint at Oxbow High. 

“I’m super excited. I have been doing some summer training in the weight room with the girls and have been having an amazing time just getting to know them,” said Gould, who played her high school soccer at Lebanon High and coached the Raiders to their first state title in program history in 2010. 

She replaces Mark Rockwood, who took over the program in 2022. The Royals went 17-45-2 during his tenure. She’s also the third head coach since varsity girls soccer debuted at Mascoma in 2020.

For Mascoma athletic director Stephen Stebbins, it was a no-brainer to bring Gould on board, citing her ability to turn programs around. 

“She has loads of experience — she’s already hit it off extremely well with the girls,” he said. “Shannon is the 100% right fit to pull all the pieces together. She’s done it before; she’s worked with teams that were struggling and has really developed.”

After Gould’s squad at Oxbow finished with three wins in her first season, the Olympians concluded this past season with nine regular-season wins and won their first playoff game since 2018. 

Although Gould — who helped start the Sunapee High girls soccer program in the late ’90s — is a Lebanon High graduate, Mascoma does have some familiar ties, as some of her family members graduated from the high school. 

While fall is a bit of a ways away, the Royals’ new head coach has been excited by her squad’s commitment to offseason workouts. 

As for a team goal in year one, she said it is to “improve every day, compete with intensity, play as one team, represent our school with pride and have the players give their best effort in every practice and every match.”

Transitioning to the gridiron, Kershaw replaces John Daley, who began his tenure in 2022 and led the Royals to a Division IV state title in 2024 and a state championship appearance last season. 

It will be a homecoming of sorts for Kershaw, who was an assistant to his father, Ray, for the Royals in the early 2010s. The elder Kershaw headed up Mascoma’s run in 2012 to a D-VI state championship appearance.  

“I’m very excited. Mascoma has always had a place not only in my heart but in my family’s heart — obviously it’s where the love for coaching came from,” he said.

“I’ve always been watching how Mascoma has been doing, and I am over the moon to be back, to be honest with you. I’m so excited. It’s been great to see a lot of the same faces, the same people that have been here forever.”

This will also serve as Kershaw’s first kick of the can as a head coach, having coached his entire high school coaching career to this point with his father, most recently at John Stark Regional High. 

It will also be a bit of a role reversal: His father will be joining the staff as an assistant. “It’s kind of cool because we’ve kind of gone full circle,” Kershaw said. 

While the Royals have had recent success, Stebbins indicated there has been real turnover with the team, but he is confident his new coach is up for the challenge. 

“He [Kershaw] seemed extremely excited to be able to come back, and I think just that enthusiasm by itself is going to pay major dividends,” Stebbins said.

“I know that, as being part of the program, that his dad has run at multiple places — he’s been in a program where they’ve taken teams that have been on a down and built them up. And although Mascoma has had extreme success over the last two years, we graduated a ton of kids.”

In terms of Kershaw’s focus for year one, it’s not only about what his players do on the gridiron but how they develop off of it. 

“First, I want the kids to have a positive experience; I want them to have fun, I want them to compete, I want them to grow as people and do the right thing when nobody is watching,” he said. 

Josh Kershaw has been hired as the new head coach of Mascoma High football. (Mascoma Valley Regional School District)