Thursday, October 1, 2026
Freeport-based nonprofit organization V-Tesse Track Club continued its mission of offering quality training and competition to young track and field athletes on Long Island during the Speed Capital Foundation’s Northeast Invitational, which the club hosted at Mitchel Field in Uniondale. The meet and performance of the student-athletes was a testament to the dedicated coaching and mentorship V-Tesse provides.
During the meet on July 5, V-Tesse’s head coach, Gregory Doresca explained that the club, which trains students from elementary school age to high school across Long Island, gets its name from “vitesse,” the French word for speed, which, in part, motivates their training.
“The goal of V-Tesse is to take ordinary athletes, turn them into an extraordinary athlete, but expose them to high-level competition throughout the world while having fun at the same time, ” he said. “The aim for the club is for every kid to get a scholarship.”
Baldwin native Breanne Barnett, 18, one of the club’s 35 athletes, became the most recent recipient of a college athletic scholarship, receiving one from the University of Virginia where she plans to attend this fall. Barnett has been running with V-Tesse since she was 9 years-old, and said that she has been especially been appreciative of the caliber of coaching that she and her fellow sprinters have received.
“Our coach gives us a lot of opportunities,” she said. “Like, for example, we go to train in Jamaica (the island nation) over spring break, so that’ sone fun thing that we get to do.”
Doresca explained that V-Tesse’s training occurs year-round, and that during trips like this year’s to Jamaica, the athletes train and compete in competitions that are not accessible to local school districts.
Other V-Tesse runners, like Uniondale resident Amar’e Daisley, 13, say that the track club has been able to prepare them for the next levels of competition.
“(I enjoy) just being able to run, honestly,” Daisley said. “I want to go to the next level, and in order to do that, I got to keep practicing.”
Other runners also expressed that they hope to continue improving in specific ways as well.
“I really want to work on the second lap of my 800 (meter race), ‘cause I fall off a lot coming into that second lap,” Tyler Macena, 13, of Massapequa said.
Peyton Brown, 10, of Baldwin, added that she hopes to work on “getting out” and starting faster during her 100, 200 and 400 meter races.
Ten V-Tesse athletes left the Northeast Invitational with victories across several races and age groups. Most notably, Barnett, who won the 200 and 400 meter races in the women’s 17-18 age range, was named the meet’s most valuable player of that range.
V-Tesse’s years of success has left them with a waiting list of children who they cannot take on at one time due to funding restrictions and a smaller staff of two other coaches assisting Doresca.
“In the future, hopefully we get more people that we could at least give a stipend to, to help us with growing this even bigger,” Doresca said.
Doresca also mentioned that the parents of children in the club provide instrumental help with fundraising for various events and trips that V-Tesse takes its runners to.
To learn more about V-Tesse and its upcoming competitions, please go to vtessetrack.org.
