NEW LONDON – The future is bright for the Norwich Free Academy girls indoor track team. And funny, too.
 Take Catie Shannon and Kayla Park.
The two freshmen each had a hand in winning two events for the Wildcats at the Eastern Connecticut Conference Division I indoor track championship Saturday at Coast Guard Academy. Shannon captured the 1,600-meter race; Park was the 600-meter winner and both were members of the victorious Sprint Medley team. Both were also part of the 4x360 team that finished in second place.
But the bond between the two has not had long to forge.
 “We have a lot of the same classes, but we didn’t know we existed before,” Park said. “She was in my English and history classes, but I didn’t know who she was. I didn’t pay much attention to her.”
Now, Park added, they are really close.
“We joke around during class and stuff. Even if we get in trouble, it’s still fun,” Shannon said.
 The two come from different worlds, brought together by the melting pot that is NFA and united by indoor track.
Park hails from Lisbon Central School while Shannon went to Williams School in New London. Park plays soccer in the fall; Shannon runs cross-country.
 But the two have found each other this winter and they have time to cement their bond.
 “We’re going to be here for a while,” Shannon said. “I think we can call it a friendship now.”
NFA coach Tom Teixeira said the two have been a pleasant surprise.
He wasn’t around in the cross-country season so he didn’t know about Shannon. He knew of Park because he had her brothers in his classes.
“I heard Catie was going to be a good runner, but when I saw her run for a first time, I thought, ‘Wow. That’s impressive.’ She will have a very long, very successful career I think,” Teixeira said. “Kayla has been outstanding. She’s very talented. They will go far together. They work well together.”
For Shannon, Saturday’s two wins made up a little for the disappointment she experienced this fall. She suffered a painful hip injury in the cross-country season which kept her out of the ECC championship meet.
 “It makes up for it a little,” Shannon said. “It was a bummer and it kept me out for a little bit. I just wanted to see what I could do and really get on the ECC circuit. It’s so much fun just to be here and to compete,” Shannon said.
But the fall did little to bring Park and Shannon together. Shannon said she did go and watch and a couple of girls soccer games even though it was for an alternative reason.
“I only went for the food,” Shannon said of the pencil-thin Park. “I saw Kayla play. She gets aggressive. She is so good. You do not know what she can do.” 
“I didn’t go to any cross-country meets.” Park admitted. “I definitely will next year.”
To run?
 “Oh no, not run,” Park added. “Soccer has been a huge passion and I’ve been playing since I was a little kid. But I will start going to more cross-country meets. We created a bond and I know other girls on this team who also do cross-country,”
But as the conversation continued following the win in the SMR, a realization set in. The two had met before. They just didn’t remember it. Until Saturday.
Park made the discovery first after Shannon said she ran for Williams School last year.
 “It was my first race of my eighth-grade year,” Park said. “I looked and there were three Williams girls and I thought ‘These girls are huge. They look like monsters.’ I was so skinny.” 
For Shannon, the memory came rushing back. Shannon said she had two teammates on the Blues that she always used to run with and no one had challenged them until Park.
 “We were sort of using telepathy between the three of us, thinking ‘Who is this girl? Can she slow down?’ Oh my God, that was you!” Shannon said.
It’s a small world after all.