B Block (Laura)

"Something that has had a major impact on my life has been baseball. I've been playing baseball since I was really little, and it's just been something that has played a large role in my life. It’s allowed me to connect with people around me better, teaching me how to join a new team and make friends. Meeting players across tournaments and in the hotels, to family with my dad, one of the biggest things we connect with is baseball, going to nationals games throughout the year has been great for us. Another part of it is experiences, getting to play at many amazing stadiums, going to watch players play at amazing stadiums, such as the Nationals, getting to go to the Orioles stadiums. Pitching and hitting, getting that walk off hit or home run, pitching an inning, striking out a bunch of people all have big impacts on my life. Winning tournaments, too. Traveling with my friends, like going to hotels every weekend,going to Delaware, PA, and New York. Health, learning how to manage my body, arm care, working out. Learning life lessons, learning how to be a part of a team, learning how to deal with defeat, learning good sportsmanship. So accepting losses, traveling to new places, going to the beach, getting to see different cities and just in general giving me countless, happy moments with my friends and family."

"The most influential person in my life is my dad because I can relate to him. For example, he liked music when he was a teenager and even started his band with people he met in high school, which is influential to me because I've always had a passion for music. To hear that he started his band in high school and now his band is what he does for a living is inspiring because it shows that if you try, you can pursue what you want to do. In seventh grade, he took me to a show, and ever since that show, I've started playing the guitar. This would never have happened if my dad had not invited me, and I feel very grateful that he introduced me to all these opportunities. He also introduced me to the world of scuba diving. He became a diver at my age, but his dad didn’t want to go on dives with him. As a kid, he couldn't go diving, but that was something he did later in life. So he gave me the opportunity, and we go on dives all the time now. It's become a real bonding experience for both of us. It’s influenced what I want to do later in life, and it's opened me to a whole new world of opportunities. Overall, he's shown me things that I probably would have never explored, and I think that those things make up who I am as a person."

"When I began playing baseball, I was around 11 years old. At the time, I wasn’t particularly skilled, but I had a deep passion for the game and a dream, I wanted to be a catcher. I loved everything about the position, the leadership it required. However, when I joined the new team, I quickly realized there was already a very good starting catcher. He was ahead of me in skill and had the trust of the coaches. That realization hit hard. I spent most of that season rarely getting a chance to prove myself. I went through a sort of "baseball depression." My confidence decreased. I felt like all the hours I had spent practicing didn’t matter. There were moments I considered quitting the sport. It’s tough watching from the sidelines, especially when you have so much love for the game, but instead of walking away, I chose to spend the offseason training harder than ever before. My uncle worked with me regularly, helping my technique and improving my mindset. My friends supported me, catching for me during throwing drills and pushing me to get better every day. When the next season came, I had improved dramatically, not just as a catcher, but as a teammate and an overall player. That experience taught me the importance of working hard for something that you love. I ended up becoming the starting catcher, and I gained the trust and confidence of my teammates and coaches for years to come."

"One of the most influential people in my life is my mom. She’s been my biggest supporter, especially when it comes to basketball. I remember cold winter evenings when practice ran late and I’d walk out of the gym exhausted, just to find her waiting in the car with the heat on and my favorite snack ready. She never missed a game, no matter how busy she was. I’d look at the bleachers before tip, and there she would be, clapping, cheering, mouthing “you got this” even when the odds were against us. After tough games, when I felt like giving up, she didn’t let me. “One game doesn’t define you”, she would say after every loss, “Keep showing up”. Her words pushed me to keep going, to practice harder, and to believe in myself even when I missed a crucial shot. Her support wasn’t just about basketball, it was about teaching me how to be strong, how to handle pressure, and how to grow through failure. Because of her, I learned that success isn’t always about the scoreboard, it’s about heart, and she helped me find mine. The only true answer to this question is my mom."

"Your biggest regrets as a kid. Biggest regrets? Yikes... Not pursuing track sooner. Why? Because it would have given me more strength to my training if I started earlier. I started at the end of middle school. Eighth grade, well, I picked track. I stumbled on it in eighth grade, when it was a city meet; just did it 'cause some friends were doing it. It was pretty good, I enjoyed it, and I was like, I could do this thing. And then really took off with it, middle of freshman year of high school, started to be really good at it, really enjoyed it. I knew more people, met more people, right? And you hear about how long people have been training. So I feel like they had an advantage over me because they had more years behind their belt, right? Yeah. So, just really think about that like, hmm. You are where you are. Everything happens for a reason, so I still got where I needed to go. So it mattered. Just had to put in more later. Yeah. I don't have other regrets about my childhood, you know, but most of your childhood, you know, its chosen by your parents. So you don't really have a regret over when you couldn't choose in the first place, but high school, when you start making your own choices, right? So your regrets are going to come more about that, when you could have actually chosen. So that was something I could have done earlier, but I didn't."

"So one of the best memories, like one of my favorites, would probably be, so my grandfather lived in Florida when I was little. He moved to Florida before I was born. And I always had fond memories of taking road trips with my parents down to Florida to see my grandfather doing stuff like this, and we would go multiple times a year. So like, I distinctly remember being on 95, like in the middle, like my dad had a Ford Ranger, so it was like a bench seat; sitting in the middle of that seat for like 14 hours at a time and just enjoying. Enjoying that part of the trip, enjoying seeing my grandfather. I lived in inner-city Wilmington for the first 14 years of my life. And having the joy of getting out of the city to go be in like middle of nowhere, central Florida, just that different experience. Probably some of my fondest memories."

"My journey at Sandy Spring started last year in eighth grade when my mom decided it would be a good choice to put me here because I hadn't been getting enough attention from my teachers. The other schools had 30 to a class and there wasn't enough personal focus to keep me understanding and attentive, but here it's only ten to 15. It also feels like the teachers really care and they actually want you to succeed, and it seems like everyone here actually has a little bit of empathy for everyone. Even if they're not your closest friend or you might not know their name, you don’t randomly have something against them, even though you've never met them. I didn't really want to go at first because other than my cousins, I knew nobody and I was afraid that I wouldn't end up meeting anybody that had similar hobbies or interests. I hadn't ever started at a completely new school and I'd been with the same people my whole life. But now it was gonna be completely different and I wouldn't know anybody. But the community here was super welcoming and I got to know a good group of people. It really has helped me because my grades are better, my experiences in school are better and now school has actually become a kind of interesting part of my day-to-day life."

"One achievement I wish I could relive was this past summer was when my baseball team went undefeated. and got to the Maine state tournament. And it was just really fun because we were from schools that had a combined draft size of about 200 kids and the teams we were playing all had over 1000 kids. It was really fun for all of us to play that well and beat those teams. It was also like a great season leading up to that because I had known all of the kids from different towns but had all known them like before and all of them were just traveling around with them. I got to pitch a lot during the summer and I just like when I started pitching more, and that was one time that I really loved baseball and I wish I could go back there. I remember after we won our district championship we all went to get dinner at Wendy's. That was the most fun dinner I ever had and after we all went to the pool and jumped in, the best night ever."