Successful first season for the Bolts

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NORWICH – The Greater Chenango Track and Field Club, named The Bolts, is the first USA Track and Field team to grace the 607 area code with it's presence. And now through the hard work of Norwich's Shannon Gawronski and her staff of committed assistant coaches, they can successfully reflect on a very successful first season completed.

“We finished the season at the Empire State Liberty Tour, the culmination of all the Liberty games,” said Gawronski of the Liberty Tour Track and Field meets they attended, including the last one at Mohanasen high school. “We went to three, then did USA Track and Field as well. As a team we took third place overall, we didn’t have the depth with the girls, but the boys swept it, they won outright. This is how we ended the season, ended up third overall while only competing in three of their meets. This really put us on the radar.”

Gawronski explained that the involvement throughout the summer season was superb, however, there was a never a time restraint on joining the team, which helped allow a free flow of new faces to step in and compete when they were available to.

The culmination of the season was in fact on July 16, when Gawronski and her assistant coaches took their team to the Liberty Games, earning the third place finish in the Adirondack league overall. However, this was just the storybook ending to top off the successful season which saw eight different athletes qualify for the larger regional meet. This regional meet happened to fall on the weekend of Gus Macker (July 9-10), so many of the eight, could not travel to Albany State University to compete. Yet, the sheer chance to go, and the ability to qualify is what Gawronski highlighted as the true importance of what The Bolts can offer aspiring athletes.

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“If they run with us as a part of a team, they have this venue to go to association meets, these are really big meets like spanning five states. You can't get that in high school. I'm not saying they have to train with me five nights a week, they just can use us as a venue. Qualifying for a national or a regional meet is a really big deal, whether you go or not. This can be a summer recreational thing, a good fun time, or you can use it as a spring board to bigger and better things,” said Gawronski.

The Bolts would compete in The Liberty Tour games, going to Oneonta, Clinton, while also sending athletes to the USATF Adirondack Association Junior Olympic Track & Field Championships, at Schuylerville High School on Sunday, June 26.

This exposure allowed young aspiring athletes an outlet to get started with Track and Field at a young age of sixth grade, all the way up to high school and even post-high school athletes.

“If Track and Field is your sport, this is a great way for colleges to notice you and maybe get a scholarship,” said assistant coach Andre Bryant.

Gawronski shared some thoughts on Bryant and his coaching throughout the year saying, “He would repeatedly run the 100, 200, 400, and anything else we threw at him. And he was posting times like 11.3 up there in the 100. That is phenomenal at almost being 31-years old. He won the 100, 200, and 400 and the throwers relay in our last meet. He ran 23.7 in the 200, up there and he coaches. He is doing double duty, I couldn’t have asked for a better assistant coach than Andre, he is that good.”

Despite this years success, Gawronski and Bryant hope to expand their reaches come the summer of 2017, hoping to reach more modified and varsity athletes while growing the sport into the Binghamton and Syracuse areas.

“The younger kids started to get tired. It was a really rigorous season, I had them going to at least two practices a week, then we started traveling everywhere, so they were pretty burnt out at the end. But that is when the modified and varsity kids really caught their second wind. When they finished their track season, they were tired and didn’t want to compete anymore, but the little kids were all amped up to do it because that was their first opportunity to do such a thing. Then as they wore down and got tired, there was just enough break for some of those varsity kids to come back and really work for us,” said Gawronski. “I don’t have to create an infrastructure, I found it, it exists, and not only did we fold into it, we found a couple different ways to host it. We have helped expand their reach, we got them to Oneonta, Clinton, and started to press toward Utica. Next year I am hoping to push toward Binghamton and Syracuse. And now it starts to look like a state wide tour, rather than just something Albany centric.

The following is the list that was provided of all the participants of this years 2016 Bolts Track and Field program:

Draden Benedict

David Bernstein

Troy Bond

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George Bryant

Rece Camadine

Hailey Colabelli

Lauren Davis

Sarah Davis

Amelia Conant

Alyssa Dunckel