Throughout my SLDM sports career I have had many accomplishments, most of them did not end in winning city championships or a trophy, but I enjoyed every minute of it. I could go on and on about what I loved about SLDM sports so that's what I’m going to do. I want to talk about my favorite year I played sports at SLDM...my eighth-grade year. 

The first sport I will talk about is basketball. I was put on the  team with coaches Rez and Barber. I’ve had many great coaches over the years but these two coaches by far had the most impact on me both as a person and as a player. They taught me leadership, toughness, fair play, fun, and a lot of other things.. As the season went on we were taking down teams by twenty points or more. We won our IBA league tournament and our Christmas tournament. We went undefeated in the regular season but when the tournament came, covid impacted some of our players. This left us with only six players to play in the tournament and we were stopped by coach Finn’s team. It was a tough loss but was still an amazing season! Coach Rez and coach Barber made practices worth coming to. I would also like to give a shoutout to my other coaches that have helped me through my basketball career at SLDM: coach Lopez, Coach James, Coach Klenke, Coach Houze, and Coach D.

The second thing I am going to talk about is my volleyball career. I started playing volleyball in fourth grade. Volleyball was not a hard sport for me to learn but part of that was because of the help of my first coach, coach Stevenson. Even though we did not do very well that season Coach Stevenson started my love for volleyball. The best season of all, was our eighth-grade year. When I came to the first practice, we looked better than ever! Throughout the season we were beating almost every team in two sets. We were undefeated going into the City Championship and nothing was stopping us. We won the City final game in two sets. It was the best feeling ever to hold the trophy and it will feel even better when I get to hold my first banner! We all worked great as a team this year and I think we earned that win. Thank you to Coach Mates, Coach Thor, Coach Opperman, and Coach Kniola. NO MERCY!!!

The third and last thing I am going to talk about is something that is a first for an eighth grader, or in this case, three eighth graders. This year I had the honor of coaching one of the mini cardinal teams with Daniel Wolf and Will Gebhardt. Mr. Wolf was also a coach, but he wanted us to do most of the work so that we could experience coaching. The 1st and 2^nd graders we coached were an extremely fun and competitive group. They were always in the mood to win, and when they lost, they were always ready to get back up and win the next one. I am extremely proud of how all the kids played. It was an experience I never thought I would have at this age.