For OF Corbin Carroll (Lakeside School, WA), the high school season is over. Lakeside was eliminated in the playoffs Monday, but on Tuesday, Carroll lifted weights and hit. A season is over and chapter closed, but much is still to come for the UCLA recruit. So the work doesn’t stop.

“I’m just thinking what got me to this position,” Carroll said. “I don’t think anything is changing right now. I’m just trying to work as hard as I can.”

That hard work has made him one of the top high school players in the country, one who will likely hear his name called early in the first round of the 2019 MLB Draft, less than a month away. It would put a stamp on the last 11 months, an impressive run in which Carroll traveled the United States to play in different showcases and tournaments, as well as to Panama where he helped Team USA’s 18U National Team win a gold medal in the 2018 Pan Am Championship. As part of the squad’s offensive dominance, Carroll hit .500 with three home runs, 15 RBIs and nine stolen bases in eight games. An important time for many rising seniors, the summer and fall seasons served as a proving ground for Carroll.

“I learned that I can go out there and compete with whoever I want to compete with,” he said. “The biggest thing for me was confidence. Going into that summer, not really playing at that level before, and then coming out of that summer feeling like I can hang with anyone. That was huge for me and pretty cool to see, given that I didn’t really have those expectations going in per se.”

Carroll’s confidence, and talent, extends off the field as well. He was just selected to the all-league academic team and hasn’t received a B since he was a sophomore. That’s a noteworthy accomplishment in itself, but Lakeside is an academically rigorous institution and boasts an impressive alumni list that includes the co-founders of Microsoft—Bill Gates and Paul Allen.

“The community there is really incredible and supportive,” Carroll said. “One of the coolest things about being at such a rigorous academic school is you’re constantly challenged. I’m constantly challenged in the classroom, which is really cool, competing in those different ways.”

Carroll has a bright future in baseball, no matter which direction his path takes next month. However, if a Plan B were to become necessary, science seems to be his calling. His declared major for UCLA is physiological sciences and he’s currently taking sports medicine and physiology courses. That same drive that elicits success on the field, helps off it too. Being a senior and baseball being his likely career, it would be easy for Carroll to hit cruise control.

“(I’m) not making excuses for myself from the baseball front,” he said. “(I’m) going in with the mindset that I’m just another student here and I need to get my business done. That’s really paid off for me. I was named to the all-league academic team. Seeing that hard work pay off has been rewarding for me.”

Rewarding and a testament to the work he’s put in since freshman year. As much as he’s proven as a player, he’s also done so as a student.

“I definitely wasn’t this caliber of a student going into the school freshman year,” Carroll said. “School was definitely a lot tougher for me then. I didn’t have some of the study habits that I do now. I just think that’s a testament to the work I’ve put in, as well as the school.

“Freshman year, I was mostly a B student. And then I haven’t had a B since sophomore year. From the work perspective, what that looked like, was those two hours a night not really making excuses and saying I’ve done enough. Just pushing through that extra hour and finding ways to get my stuff done. If I have a 45-minute free period and I’ve got work to get done, I have the self control now where I say, ‘I’m not gonna goof off with my friends. I’m gonna go get some work done.’”

The work is only beginning for Carroll, but you can bet he’ll find his way on Lakeside’s notable alumni list.