Senior Tom Patterson has been a baseball player for his entire life. From tee ball to high school varsity, Patterson’s experience with America’s pastime is extensive. But it wasn’t until this year that Patterson reached the next level of his baseball career, being a captain.

“I am very excited to be a captain this year, I think it will be challenging but fun,” Patterson said.

Being the captain of baseball is not Patterson’s first time leading a team. In fact he has been a captain of the Alpine Ski team for two years, but they weren’t consecutive.

“I was captain of [Alpine Skiing] my sophomore year, but I was so bad they didn’t want me to do it the next year. But [my senior year] they let me take the captain role again,” Patterson said.

He also hopes to be able to use some of the lessons that he learned from being a captain of Alpine in his leadership of baseball. The team lost a lot of good players from last year’s squad so both Patterson and fellow captain Jesper Salverda know they have a lot of work to do.

“With the loss of all the players from last year, plus not having Ryan Kuntz, this season will definitely be a tough one,” Patterson said.

But when asked about his outlook on the season, Patterson was optimistic.

“I think this team can be good this year, we have a lot of young talent.” Patterson said.