Benilde-St. Margaret’s School senior softball captain Taylor Damberg found success on the diamond and something worth even more in the halls and classrooms of the high school in St. Louis Park.

“Growing up in a private Catholic school the past 12 years has certainly brought me closer to Jesus, but what’s special about BSM is the way it has pushed me to see the world outside of its halls,” said Damberg, a member of St. Bartholomew in Wayzata.

Damberg sees it in softball, where she recognizes that her opponents have equal dignity from God. She also prioritizes Mass during the club season outside of BSM when tournaments fall on a Sunday.

On the field, she helped BSM reach two state tournaments in the past three years. Macalester College in St. Paul recruited her to play next year, but she will attend Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, and study in that school’s pre-medicine program instead.

Damberg, who attended St. Bartholomew Catholic School in Wayzata through the sixth grade, chose BSM because of its Catholic values and its academic rigor. An eighth-grade religious studies class challenged her to make her faith her own, and it set the tone for her time at BSM, she said.

“I’m Catholic not because my parents are Catholic, but because of my belief in God and my personal decision to follow him,” Damberg said. “It is because of my relationship with him that I am capable of anything at all. I credit everything to him.”

Theology classes in high school led her to embrace the charism of service, which BSM emphasizes because the Christian Brothers, founded by St. John the Baptist de LaSalle, values service and it was one of the founding orders of the school.

Damberg volunteered 60 hours her junior year at St. Therese of New Hope, a senior care center in New Hope, as part of a theology course at BSM. She also helped lead a weeklong mission trip with 10 BSM junior-high girls in Rapid City, South Dakota, where she volunteered at a child care center for families experiencing poverty.

She also serves with Link Crew, which supports new students’ transition to BSM, and a Students for Human Life group at the school. Getting involved in Students for Human Life was a fruit of her faith journey, she said.

She plans to continue her pro-life work in the medical field after college, she said.