Moore, Munyanya are first Athlete of The Month for class of 2011

Troy Moore (Worcester, MA) and Crispin Munyanya (Manchester, NH) are the inaugural Athlete of The Month for the 2010-2011 school year. Moore, a football player and Munyanya, a soccer player were both chosen for their game-changing play. In speaking with Coach Sawicki regarding the selection, he had this to say, "Moore looks the part. He walks into a room and you expect him to be a football player. More importantly, he backs it up. He changes the game and makes opponents work around him. Crispin, on the other hand, does it very subtley. These two guys couldn't be more night and day. Crispin gets it done though-it's as simple as that. He controls the middle of the field. He makes the plays so that his teammates can get into position for the easy goals."

The two join a long list of outstanding student athletes. For more information on these two as well as their predecessors, click here:

http://www.bridgtonacademy.org/athmonth.cfm

Wolverine Strength adds staff

The Wolverine Strength program is pleased to announce two new staff members for the 2010-2011 school year. The new staff will add unprecedented depth to the program as well as a tremendous amount of knowledge for our student atheltes.

Michelle Sturgeon:Michelle joins Bridgton Academy after 10 years of coaching and training in the Boston area.
Michelle earned a B.S. in Kinesiology from the University of Maine, Orono in 1997 and a M.Ed. with a concentration in Strength and Conditioning from Springfield College in 2002.
Michelle attended school while designing and implementing strength and conditioning programs for Springfield College as well as American International College. As a previous employee of Mike Boyle’s Strength and Conditioning, Michelle coached athletes from the NHL, NFL, NLL, WUSA and USA Women’s Olympic Ice Hockey Team.
Michelle has earned a Club Coach Certification from USA Weightlifting, Performance Enhancement Specialist Certification from NASM, as well as her Schwinn Certification.

Her primary sport responsibilities will be Soccer and Lacrosse. Michelle will also be serving the school as registrar as well as teaching classes in the science department.

Craig Moody:Craig joins BA as the school's first ever Intern Athletic Trainer. A recent graduate of the University of Maine at Presque Isle, Craig will be honing his trade in the athletic training room. Additionally, he will be working with the strength and conditioning program for the Wolverine baseball team. An avid baseball fan, Craig is currently finishing an internship with the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, the Double-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays.

Summer Workout Time!!

For the BA class of 2011, summer workouts are in full swing. To access the workouts, check out the workouts section of the BA website. The incoming students section is on the left column. For exercise demonstrations and descriptions check out the Exercise Demos section of the website. For any more information, contact Coach Sawicki at 207.647.7662.

Testing finishes up with success!!

The last day of testing for the class of 2010 finished up earlier this afternoon. There was a big crowd for outside running of the 40's. It was a beautiful spring day in Maine with temps in the 80's. Like the times inside last week, there were some tremendous improvements from the fall.

Overall, the year finished up with guys getting bigger, faster, and stronger. We'll say goodbye to the class on Saturday and start thinking about the class of 2011, which will start the summer program at the end of May.

Weather ruins day 3

With a combination of rain on Wednesday and a very heavy wind today, not much testing happened. A couple of the guys tested in the max rep 225 bench press and a couple of guys tested on standing broad jump.

A few trends started to surface, however. We noticed that not many guys improved significantly in the power tests. Speed and agility tests were through the roof and maybe that was because of an increased emphasis on these throughout the spring.

It's back to the drawing board for next years class...

Surprises on day 2 of testing

In a day full of surprises, none was more significant than from an athlete who has been too busy for the SQA program.

As expected, the testing numbers from the SQA athletes was outstanding. Everyone testing in the 40 yard dash improved their numbers by at least a tenth of a second. Jake Lane and Viondy Merisma continued to show tremendous growth this spring with Lane posting a 5.04 at 275 pounds and Merisma running a 4.98 at 285 lbs.

Steve Goniprow (Barrington, RI) and Brian Wilcox (Jericho, VT) both turned in excellent times with Goniprow improving from 4.71 in the fall to 4.50 and Wilcox going from 4.62 in the fall to 4.47.

The biggest surprise of the day was turned in by Tad Gold (Oak Bluffs, MA) who decided to test because the baseball team had a rainout vs. Hebron. Having never run a 40 yard dash before, he blew away all preconceptions by turning in a school-best 4.30 on three separate runs. The hockey-baseball player then took a turn on the vertical jump test and jumped a very impressive 30.5 inches. He then followed us into the gym and ran a blistering 4.98 seconds in the 20 yard shuttle.

This coach was impressed and blown away by this display of athletic prowess. Tomorrow is bench press and standing long jump so check back for reports on that.

Exit testing all week

A week before the BA students get their final academic exams of the year, the Wolverine Strength program is doing its exit testing for the spring strength & conditioning programs. A group of 10 athletes came out for the first day of testing which measured the 20 yard shuttle and pullups.

9 out of the 10 showed a significant improvement from their testing numbers in the fall in the 20 yard shuttle. The day's top performer was John Moscatel (Lexington, MA) who set a blistering pace with three consistent performances of 4.03 seconds. This represented a 2-tenth of a second improvement from the fall. The most drastic improvement came in from Jake Lane (Harrison Valley, PA) who came in at 4.66, down from 5.28 in August.

For pullups, the days top performer was Ethan Barnes (New Bedford, MA) who knocked out 28 pullups. The most impressive performance in this test came from Viondy Merisma (Waltham, MA) who did 10 pullups at 285 lbs.

Coach Sawicki to present

On Saturday, April 24th, Athletic Trainer/S&C Coach Joe Sawicki will be presenting at the Maine NSCA conference at the Portland campus of the University of New England. The title of his presentation is "Developing the College-Ready Athlete" and focuses on trends that separate the typical high-school athlete versus the college-ready athlete. For more information contact Coach Sawicki at jsawicki@bridgtonacademy.org

SQA program hits record number of participants

A program that was once a throw-in activity for a few football players each spring has blossomed into a vital part of the athletic development program. This spring, the SQA program is reaching nearly half the student body. It has become a key supplement to the spring workouts for all our programs. The spring SQA program is currently following the schedule below:

Football: Tuesday-Agility and lateral speed, Thursday-Straight ahead speed
Soccer: Tuesday-Footwork and speed, Thursday-Power development
Hockey: Monday-Footwork and footspeed, Wednesday-Power development

Wolverine Strength kickoff!

Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Wolverine Strength blog. I've been toying around with the idea of doing this for a while. Last week I was at the Perform Better Clinic in Boston and I realized that we might be the only organization without a blog. So here we go! I am sure we have plenty of activity to report on so check back regularly!

-Coach Sawicki