Applying that strategy that his father gave him has paid off over the course of his four years at CBA. Maione has been a first honors student every semester, was second in his class for Spanish excellence, and received the Seal of Biliteracy.

He has had to work for those accolades, however. Maione mentioned tough classes like Mr. Frake’s AP Calculus have taught him to relish the feeling of putting in effort to get a good grade.

“If school was easy, there would be no reward for graduating,” he said. “Graduation is exciting, but if there was no fight to get to graduation, it wouldn’t be that exciting.”

As his CBA graduation approaches on May 19, he looks back at the totality of his experience with a smile.

Maione speaks highly of his time in the CBA volleyball program, working his way up from the JV team to the varsity squad. While the games and practices have taught him to love the sport, it will be the team camaraderie that he will remember the most.

“Volleyball is fun, but it would not be the same without the people,” he said. “I have made some of my best friends through the volleyball team.”

He feels similarly about his time with the Spanish Club and its moderator Mrs. Ver Hoven, reminiscing on simple activities like Spanish-centric board games turning into hours of conversation and laughs. He even took up a leadership position as secretary during sophomore year and now as vice president during senior year.

Both his classroom and extracurricular activities are going to benefit him at his next stop: Purdue University. Once he took a trip out to the Indiana-based school, he immediately knew that it was the right fit for him.

“It is indescribable, when you are on the campus, you’re like ‘yeah, this is the place,'” he said. “When you visit the right school, you’ll know you are meant to be there. Once I visited during my junior year, I worked so much harder on [the Purdue] application because I knew, if I got in, that is where I was going.”