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Loyalty, perseverance pay off for Belfast youth
By J.P. BUTLER
BELFAST — Hannah Southwick was determined. A year ago, the Belfast middleschooler was nominated, and tried out, for the U12 Softball Youth All-American Games, “an inviteonly four-day experience featuring athletes from coast to coast held in eight markets every year.” Southwick, a pitcher, fell just short of the cut, but was given some positive feedback and a list of things Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, shown in Olean on June 18, visited Allegany County business sites as well. to work on before another potential tryout. And over the next several months, she worked diligently to check those boxes. Southwick worked with pitching coach Diana Phalon, the former Smethport star who continued her career at Division I St. Bonaventure, two to three days a week and hit on the days she wasn’t pitching. She went to as many area softball clinics going to be important for as she could, including the Next LevBELMONT — Lt. the local residents as well el and Houghton camps, and spent Gov. Kathy Hochul as the through travelers." the winter months with her travel visited several Southern team, the Southern Tier Bandits. In August, the AlTier businesses June 18, And, eventually, that hard work legany County IDA welcoming owners back paid off. from a three-month shut- announced that QuickThis spring, Southwick again tried lee’s, founded in 1995 down in response to the out for the All-American Games … in Avon, would build coronavirus pandemic. and this time, she made the team, its 20th location on the After a stop in Olean, with the U13 squad. It was an exhilasite. A fast food-type Hochul moved on to the rating moment for Southwick, who restaurant is also to be Cuba Cheese Shoppe just recently turned 13 and finished included in the develin Cuba and the Quickher seventh grade school year. opment. In December, lee's development site at “I just couldn’t believe it,” she developers worked with the Crossroads area on said. local fire departments to Interstate 86, met there THERE WAS just one problem. burn down the former by Route 19 and County The tournament she’d been All American Plaza truck Road 20. selected for — scheduled for Aug. stop and restaurant as a Hochul, a Buffalo na14-17 in Ocean City, Md. — haptraining exercise. Work tive, told The Spectator pened to fall on the same weekend on the site began shortly of Hornell that she sees of a travel event in Olean, which had the need for a full-service thereafter. been pushed further into the summer The site will feature travel center in Allegany due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And a convenience store, a County. so, she was faced with a dilemma: quick service restaurant, "It's necessary," she seize the opportunity to play in this fueling for cars and tracsaid. “I’ve been on this national tournament or stay home interstate countless times tor-trailers, two shower with the Southern Tier Bandits, a and to know there's going facilities and a two-story, team she’d committed to months 30-seat foyer. to be a state of the art, earlier. Curt Crandall, chairclean facility that has a Southwick couldn’t imagine not lot of amenities is really See VISIT on page 2...
Lt. Gov. Hochul visits Quicklee’s site in Belmont
Photo provided Hannah Southwick, a 13-year old Belfast resident, was chosen to participate in the Youth Softball All-American Games and will play at a national tournament in Kentucky July 30-Aug. 2.
being there for her Bandit teammates when they needed her most. In the end, she made the difficult — and very mature — decision to pass on the All-American Games. “I didn’t want to leave my team,” she said. “We’d been working all winter, so I should probably commit to the team I’ve been with for a while. And then I said, if I can’t (play on the national team), I’ll just try again next year.” Said Southwick’s mother, Sarah Powers, who noted that the Olean tournament might well be the only one the Bandits play in all summer due to coronavirus-related restrictions: “We told her it was her choice. We said, ‘listen, there’s going to be some times where you have to make tough decisions and this is one of them. There’s no right or wrong, but it’s something that you really have to think about.’ And we were pretty happy when she said, ‘I’m not going; I just can’t leave them.” POWERS THEN emailed the coordinator for the All-American Games saying, “Hannah was excited for the opportunity, but unfortunately, her travel team schedule got rearranged … and she thought that it would be selfish to leave for her own
benefit and not be there to help (the Bandits).” A few days later, they received an interesting, and welcome, response. Softball Youth was so impressed with Southwick’s selflessness that it gave her “a second chance,” offering up a spot at the July 30-Aug. 2 event in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Southwick, of course, gladly accepted. And in six weeks, she’ll be representing both Allegany County and Belfast as one of just two New Yorkers on a national roster in this prestigious event. “I’m a little nervous,” acknowledged Southwick, who had her modified season at Belfast wiped out due to the pandemic, but might make the leap to varsity next spring as an eighth-grader, “but I’m excited.” DESPITE THE continued uncertainty wielded by COVID-19, the Kentucky games — as of now — are “still a go,” Powers noted. The tournament, in fact, has multiple contingencies ready based on whatever regulations are in place at the time, including the potential of playing without spectators and setting up a livestream to allow parents to watch from home. The hope, too, is that by midAugust, Western New York will be far enough into its reopening phases that the Olean tournament will also be staged, with only some social distancing and other guidelines in place. Southwick, naturally, is thrilled; in the end, it all worked out. And Powers? She’s proud — of how hard her daughter worked — the countless hours she put in — to make the national team on her second try, certainly; but even more so for how willing Southwick was to choose loyalty over individual gain. “I’m more proud of her decisions than the strides that she’s made,” Powers said. “(It) makes me feel like her dad and I made the right choices along the way, and she’s learned, and we’ve guided her on how to act and make choices properly. That was pretty big for us.”
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