Sarah Bonnell was far and away the Norwich girls’ soccer team’s leading scorer last season. Yes, she possessed ample skills to direct the ball past the keeper, but she had a weapon more dangerous to defenses than her skill: Speed.

On the basketball floor as a key reserve, again she had competent skills, but she was at her best beating opponents' defenses up and down the floor.

No, this isn’t soccer season and it definitely isn’t basketball season. Bonnell, for the third straight season, has taken her fleetness afoot to the track, and after spending the majority of her career as a runner-up, she’s stepped to the forefront as the Purple Tornado’s top sprinter this season.

Bonnell has won every race she has entered in dual meet competition this season, and is one of just a handful of Norwich girls to ever eclipse 13 seconds in the 100-meter dash – and she has done it already twice in the first month of this season.

The Norwich junior will face some of her stiffest local competition today at the annual REK Invitational hosted by the Tornado, and she’ll step to the starting line as this week’s Evening Sun/Smith Ford LLC Athlete of the Week.

“The thing about Sarah is that she was the seventh fastest girl in all of Section IV last year, and no one knew about it,” said Norwich co-head coach Phil Curley, “because her teammate Katie (Benenati) was sixth. How many coaches would like to have the seventh-fastest girl in Section IV on their team.”