This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
06/30/2016 12:00 AMLauren Card split time on the mound for the North Haven softball team through most of the recent season, but when fellow pitcher Ava Mattei suffered an injury, Lauren became the Indians’ full-time hurler in the home stretch of her freshman year.
Lauren took full advantage of the opportunity when she started North Haven’s last six games. Facing Amity and Lauralton Hall twice, in addition to pitching against Foran and East Lyme, Lauren did not allow more than two earned runs in any start and threw a great game when the Indians beat East Lyme in states. All totaled, Lauren went 6-5 with a save and posted an earned-run average of 1.97 in 78.2 innings for the season.
“It was kind of nerve-wracking being a freshman and pitching against tough teams, but with the defense and our hitting, we worked through it. I was just thinking, ‘Try and pitch strikes. If they hit the ball, I have the defense behind me backing me up,’” says Lauren. “I think it really boosted up my confidence. I think next year will be a lot better and, since we had such a young team this year, next year we will be a lot more experienced and be better.”
Lauren, a right-hander, has an arsenal that features a fastball, changeup, a dropball, and curve. Lauren likes how her dropball is especially effective by inducing batters to hit plenty of ground balls. Something else Lauren likes is that she had the chance to pitch to her sister Rachel Card, who was North Haven’s catcher this year and also one of the team’s senior captains.
“I really like how this season I got to pitch to my sister because I never got to do that before. She was good at catching me because she knew my pitches and what to call,” says Lauren. “I really liked it because I knew she had my back and she stuck up for me. It was nice. Since I would pitch to her at home, she knew what pitches to call in the game. If something wasn’t working, she’d know what pitch to call. She was very experienced and knew what to call behind the plate.”
Although Lauren is excited that she has three more years left in her high school career, she wishes that her time on the diamond with Rachel could have lasted longer.
“Yeah, I kind of wish it’d be longer, but she has to go to college, so it’s OK,” says Lauren, who plays some second base when she isn’t pitching. “I think I’ll be OK because there’s a catcher coming up and she has experience. She knows my pitches and can call them, too.”
Indians’ Head Coach Sally Maher felt the sibling tandem worked great together and was proud of Lauren for how she handled herself on the hill in her debut campaign.
“Our schedule is a beat-down schedule. It’s not easy and, against Amity, we lost 2-0 and 1-0. They were both respectable games and she kept their batters in check, which is not easy to do,” says Maher. “She has very good composure on the mound, especially as a freshman. She’s still developing. Lauren hasn’t mastered all of her pitches yet, but she throws 60 [miles per hour] as a freshman, which is impressive. It’s going to be fun. We have a talented group of young kids right now and Lauren is a part of that group, so it’ll be fun to watch them grow together.”
Lauren says that her time playing travel ball had her ready for the high school season. She also feels that developing a few new pitches by working with her pitching coach will make her even better moving forward.
“When you go to high school, you have to face seniors and really good hitting teams, so you have to push through it. It’s a lot tougher because players are older and more experienced. With my travel team, we would play 16-U and 18-U tournaments, so we’d face good-hitting teams, which helped me to get prepared for high school,” says Lauren. “I plan on learning more pitches and working on them for the next couple years of high school. I will probably learn a [riseball] and maybe a [screwball] and I plan on increasing my speed for the next couple of years.”