- January 2016
Personal Statement
My name is Michael Talaga, and t will be a senior at Canterbury High School in Fort Wayne, IN for the 2015 and 2016 school year. Besides having a solid athletics program, Canterbury is one of the top academic college preparatory schools in the state. I've played organized baseball since I was 5 years old. Because of my father's job, we've moved quite a bit. As a result, I've played on travel teams in Michigan, Germany, and Indiana. Until recently, I would have been considered small; 5'6", 125 pounds at the beginning of 2014. I am now 6' and 160 pounds with zero body fat. I've put on 20 pounds of muscle in the past 18 months. My goal is to get to 175 pounds, with zero body fat, by the time I start my first college baseball season.
My best time in the 60 is 6.7 (from 7.5); best throw across the infield is 79 mph (from 71). I have foregone summer ball much of the past year to spend time in the weight room. I've played SS, 2B, 3B, and P my entire life but might start my senior year as the team's CF. I have also been named Team Captain for the 2016 season.
Canterbury has had some pretty good baseball teams of late loaded with seniors. Even though I've been on the Varsity since my freshman year, it was only last year where I played every' minute of the 18 games I attended (missed one to take SAT tests). On a Team with 5 seniors signed to play college baseball, I led the team in RBI's (22 - none in first 5 games while batting second), was 2nd in hitting (.424), 2nd in extra base hits, 2nd in stolen bases, while hitting safely in 17 of the 18 games I played. I also pitched sparingly and ended up leading Canterbury with a 1.02 ERA. Canterbury ended 2015 with a 15-4 record (many rained out games).
I've worked the past 3 winters with Mike Shirley (Chicago White Sox Scout) who, with some college Coaches, run a winter camp near Indianapolis where there is 90 minutes of intense fundamental work on hitting and defensive techniques every week. I was selected to participate in this year's Indiana Elite Crossroads Camp and Indiana Elite North-South 2AJunior game. I was in the top 10 in the State for Batting Average all year in Class 2A and in the top 100 for all Classes (MaxPreps).
I ended my junior year with a 3.47 GPA while taking difficult courses, including AP Biology. Besides English, I have 3 years of Spanish and 2 years of German. I scored pretty high in Math on both the ACT (29) and SAT (640). Overall ACT is 26 and SAT is 1160 (1780 with critical writing). I also completed 40 hours of community service (instructor at Science Central) this past year.
I want to study Business (Finance) while in college and I want to play baseball!!
