High School Top Performer - Week 1: Matt Lane (boys lacrosse), Montclair Kimberley
Matt Lane of Montclair Kimberley is the Boys Lacrosse Athlete of the Week (Patti Sapone/The Star-Ledger).
MATT LANE, MONTCLAIR KIMBERLEY
6-8, 225 pounds, senior attackman
JUST THE STATS: Lane, who will continue his lacrosse career at Syracuse, is coming off a junior year where he recorded 34 goals and 66 assists and has over 250 points for his career. This season, Montclair Kimberely has won all four of its games in overtime, and Lane was responsible for two of them as he scored the overtime-winner in an 11-10 triumph over Columbia on April 2 and in a 9-8 victory over Newark Academy on April 6.He has 15 goals and eight assists this season, and has recorded four points or more in all five games. He's scored three goals or more in four games and has two five-point games on the year.
COACH'S COMMENT: "I think the most amazing thing about Matt, when you go back through his four years, is when you look at his size and you see all the points. I think people, naturally, think he's just a big bull dodger who gets a lot of goals. But, every year, he's had more assists than goals. He's got great vision and really makes the other players around him better. We've got a young team and they obviously look up to him, and he involves everybody. He's the QB out there and he, Mark (Phillips) and Ryan (Fennelly), the seniors, work well out there together. He's a gamer, too, who wants the ball in his stick when things are tight. Every game he's a marked man as teams have tricky defenses for him and he works through it." -- Montclair Kimberley coach Paul Edwards.
ON THE TEAM: "I think we have a great group of kids this year and I think we learn every day and every win we've had. Fortunately, we won for the fourth time in overtime. We've been given a gut-check in every game we've played so far and we were fortunate to come out with a win (over Hopewell Valley on April 9). We don't stop trying ever."
ON HIS SEASON: "Personally, I don't think I'm playing my best right now, and I'm not trying to sound selfish. As long as we win, I don't really care how I'm playing. If we keep winning in overtime, I'm not going to really care if I score or not, just as long as we keep winning."
ON GOING TO OVERTIME IN FOUR OF THE FIVE GAMES: "It comes down to character and coaching. Coach has been preparing us, telling us there's going to be a lot of hard times this year and there's going to be some adversity and we need to be able to face it head on, come together as a team, play together as a team and we'll come away with a victory."
THREE-SPORT ATHLETE: He's also the goalie for the soccer team and played on the basketball team. He earned Second Team All-State honors for his work in goal for the soccer team and averaged 13.8 points, 14.3 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 2.5 blocks for the hoops squad.
FAVORITE SPORT OF THE THREE: "I'd have to go with lacrosse. I grew up in Glen Ridge and all my friends used to play it. Then my friend, Tim Mulrenan (former Seton Hall Prep player) and Pat Karole (former MKA teammate, now playing at Denver) told me to pick it up and come out for the team and I started fiddling with the stick a little bit and then I got good at it and just kept at it. I knew I had some college interest for soccer and I kind of pursued that early, then I realized I really loved lacrosse and really wanted to pursue that for college. I feel like the sky is the limit for me, especially since I learned it so late in my life and there's untapped potential."
HOW THE OTHER SPORTS HELP FOR LACROSSE: "When I was younger I used to always play basketball. My dad told me I was going to be so tall and that I had to play basketball. I went to a bunch of athletic trainers and prestigious basketball coaches and they told me three things to learn were vision, always try to keep moving and always try to help out your teammates when playing. I think those three things really helped me in lacrosse because I feel like I have pretty good vision. Most of the time, I don't really dodge to score. I'm really looking to feed, draw a double-team and dish it. It all comes back to what I learned what I was younger."
START IN LACROSSE: "I seriously started playing over the summer in seventh grade."
GOALS: "I think every year, every team's goal is to win everything they possibly can. Since we're so young, I think we can grow so much throughout the year. There's no way now, if we played in the state tournament we'd win it, but, by the end of the year, once we get everybody rolling, learning who we are and getting chemistry, I think there's a good chance we can put something together."
BIGGEST IMPROVEMENT: "I don't think there's anything really on the field that's shown. I think my leadership has really stepped up this year. I take it personally, because we lost so many defenders and we lost Kingsley in the fall and, it's my last season, and I don't want to go out with a losing record because I've never had one at the school before. I just don't want it to happen this year. I'm trying to lead by example more this year and try to get the guys motivated and to all believe in each other and buy into the system so we can win games."
NEEDS WORK: "Has to be the off-hand. I'm trying to get more comfortable with my left hand. I really want to develop my left hand and be able to feed and shoot, as well."
FAVORITE MOMENT: "As a team, it's either winning the Non-Public B title last year or preps my sophomore year. My freshman year we went down to Rutgers Prep and got spanked in the rain and all we talked about was that we had to win the preps. We had to get back and we played our butts off the next year. The Non-Public B title was a culmination of all the hard work we put into the off-season and how good of coaches we have. The players buy into the system and we just do what we need to do every day."
WINNING THE NON-PUBLIC B TITLE LAST YEAR: "I think it was a huge step to go from three wins to 19 last year. It speaks volumes about coach and the players we were blessed to have in this program and how hard we've been working. No one wants to win three games. We sucked it up and put in all the hard work needed to win."
FAVORITES ATHLETES: LeBron James and Paul Rabil.
FAVORITE TEAMS: Los Angeles Clippers, New York Yankees, New Jersey Devils and Philadelphia Eagles.
ROLE MODELS: "Definitely coach Tony Jones, who's been one of the most influental people in my life. Also, hearing different stories of different people coming from nothing and succeeding and putting in everything they had and getting a great result out of it."
FAVORITE TV SHOWS: Homeland or The Following
FAVORITE MOVIES: Wedding Crashers
HOBBIES OUTSIDE LACROSSE: Hanging out with friends, listening to music, working out
PEOPLE DON'T KNOW...: "My favorite sport to watch is hockey."
DINNER FOR FOUR: Tony Jones, Steve Jobs and Jackie Robinson.
