Baseball Sports Spring Sports

Athlete of the Week: Thomas Lane ’15

Co-Captain Thomas Lane ’15, a four-year senior from Georgetown, Mass., strikes fear in batters with his imposing stature. His 6’5” frame gives him the ability to drive downhill and attack the plate with a fastball that tops out in the low nineties. In his season debut against Tabor, he threw a complete game two-hitter, while striking out six. His leadership as a Co-Captain and his team-first mentality make him a key part of the Andover Baseball team. Due to his outstanding start to the season, Lane has been awarded The Phillipian’s Athlete of the Week.

You dominated in your last start. What allowed you to take control of the hitters and pound the strike zone?

It was a cold day, around 35 degrees, so I made sure to really focus on warmups and getting a feel for the ball. It was hard to grip it on that day because of the temperature. Once I got into the game, my plan was to go and attack them. I knew that I had a good defense behind me. For most of the first half of the game, I was pitching to contact. I got lots of ground balls and pop ups. As the game went along, I started finding my pitches a little better and getting swings and misses. I definitely think the plan was originally to pitch to contact and let the defense work behind me and then everything kind of worked off that.

What pitch was most effective and what made it so?

Definitely my slider. I was getting a lot of swings and misses, especially in the sixth and seventh [innings]. It just felt really good. I definitely feel that my pitches got stronger as the game went on, but I think that my slider progressed the most throughout the game.

Is there any pressure on you to lead the team?

No, I don’t think that there is pressure because everyone around me on the team is really good. I think that any of us can carry the team at any time when [the team] needs it, so I trust my teammates to pick me up and I trust myself to pick them up when they need it as well.

What is your mindset this season, when you are going to a Division I baseball program and potentially have a shot to get drafted?

I’m just really focused on the team winning. My number one goal is to go out there and get a win for the team, and I think that everything else stems off of that. If I’m going out there and doing my best to help the team win, I think that individual performances can feed off from that for us to ultimately get the win.