2022

One of the biggest parts of my 2022 season was traveling to Florida with Team Swingman for the Perfect Game Invitational. We were playing against some of the best teams and players in the country, and we were one of the first teams from Washington to attend, so it was really cool to represent our state and the Pacific Northwest.

Later that summer, we traveled to Cooperstown, a legendary tournament that almost every youth baseball player dreams about attending. We stayed in barracks with our teammates for the entire week, and on the first day we competed in the Around the Horn contest. Our coaches had us practice it for months because we wanted to win, and all of that work paid off when we did. We displayed the trophy outside our barrack for the rest of the tournament, and players from other teams would stop to look at it. We also played really well during pool play and earned the number-one seed going into the tournament bracket. On the final day, we played three games and came from behind to win the championship. I started the championship game, and I will always remember hanging a curveball to the kid who had won the home run derby earlier in the week. He hit it for a home run, but later in the game I made up for it by hitting one of my own. Finishing first out of more than 70 teams, while also winning Around the Horn and earning the top seed, made Cooperstown one of the most exciting and memorable baseball experiences I have ever had.