April 27, 2018
By Tyler Testin
It usually starts with a message from his mom.
As the numerous awards and accolades pour in for University of Notre Dame men’s lacrosse standout John Sexton this season, more times than not it is his mother who is the first to offer her congratulations to the senior long-stick midfielder. But with a list of distinctions including a three-time All-Atlantic Coast Conference Team selection, Inside Lacrosse First Team Preseason and Midseason All-American, Sexton’s play has garnered the attention of many more than just his immediate family.
Sexton leads an Irish defense that has allowed the opposition to score in double figures only four times this season. He is scooping ground balls at a clip of 3.9 per game, trailing only face-off specialist John Travisano. Sexton and the Irish have especially been able shut down opponents at the end of games, when Notre Dame is outshooting the opposition 105 shots to 68 in the fourth quarter. The defense’s staunch effort this season has been validated by Sexton’s haul of recognition.
“It’s reflective of how well our defense has been playing as a whole right now,” Sexton said. “The way we play defense, it’s kind of hard to look at any single individual and point them out as being the reason the defense is playing so well.”
Even among the strong group of defenders for Notre Dame, with the likes of junior Hugh Crance and freshman Arden Cohen raking in ground balls, it is Sexton who is normally singled out for his tenacious defense. At the beginning of the season he was named to the Tewaaraton Award watch list, given annually to be best lacrosse player in the country. There were only two other LSM’s named to this list of 50 student athletes.
“I’m a pretty competitive guy, but I’d say at the end of the day most of my goals just revolve around winning,” Sexton said. “I’d rather come away with a win than any kind of statistic or anything like that. It’s nice when the two intersect but I’m just looking to go out there and compete.”
As a team, the Irish have faced adversity on the offensive end with attackman Brendan Gleason and midfielder Bryan Costabile both missing time due to injury. Without the full firepower of two of their top three points scorers, Notre Dame was forced to rely more heavily on Sexton and the defense to make stops this season.
“I think that we started hot early,” Sexton said. “Our offense was ticking at that point and then we dropped a couple of guys, which was a little sputter, but I think for the most part we’ve been on an upward trajectory.”
Sexton finds himself a seasoned leader on a Notre Dame roster featuring underclassmen at many key positions. One such athlete is sophomore Bryan Costabile, who, in spite of injury, is leading the team with 21 goals and is second in points with 23 on the year. The young midfielder has also become a worthy practice foil for Sexton.
“Bryan Costabile and I are pretty competitive with each other,” Sexton said. “He’s another guy who likes to get after it. The two of us definitely butt heads a little bit in practice and make it fun in that we’re both going hard. When we beat each other it exposes a weakness that we have and that helps us eliminate that for when we have to face it in a game.”
For a team such as Notre Dame with youth at many positions, it is important for the inexperienced players to get as many competitive reps as possible. When Sexton and other upperclassmen mentors bring game-level intensity to practice, it can accelerate the learning curve and bring the team closer to their full potential.
“It’s developing the way you’d expect a young team to, which is learning things on a weekly basis and making strides in bounds,” Sexton said. “We haven’t found our full stride yet but I think we’re pretty near that. I think that’s a good thing when you’re approaching the end of the season. Some teams peak in the middle and then start to tail off a little. I think that we’re still trying to find our peak.”
Sexton found himself near the top of the board at the Major League Lacrosse Draft held April 18. Just the seventh defensive player selected, Sexton was chosen by the Dallas Rattlers with the 18th overall pick. The allure of professional lacrosse is not distracting Sexton from his remaining time in a Fighting Irish uniform and his limited time left at Notre Dame.
“You step on campus and there’s just kind of a buzz to it,” Sexton said. “Everyone’s friendly. Everyone loves this place. I’m going to miss being able to walk around campus and have that friendly vibe.”
As good of a student as he is a defenseman, Sexton brings his same intensity for lacrosse to his studies as he works to juggle academics at a top-tier university and athletics as a top tier lacrosse player.
“It definitely takes a lot of organization, a lot of time management, to balance the two of them,” Sexton said. “I’m not going to lie and say I’ve perfected it. There are times when practice goes late and you’re up late doing work. I think at the end of the day it’s just stomaching it and finishing all your work when you need to, whether that’s at 1 a.m. or whenever. You can’t wimp out about it, you just go get it done.”
Sexton is the only men’s lacrosse player in the conference to win the Weaver-James-Corrigan Award, part of the ACC postgraduate scholarship program. He was also named to the ACC All-Academic Team at the end of the previous two seasons. In addition to the roster spot with the Dallas Rattlers awaiting him, the finance major has an offer from Marathon Capital to be an investment banking analyst.
As Sexton finishes his career with the Fighting Irish, Notre Dame will make their push for the NCAA tournament in the coming weeks. The Irish resume is already buoyed by a signature 11-9 victory in Arlotta Stadium against top draft pick Trevor Baptiste and the Denver Pioneers.
“Denver is probably my favorite win of the year so far,” Sexton said. “They are a team that had beaten us our previous five times we’ve played them, and knocked two teams that I was on out of the playoffs. That was a meaningful win for us in the sense it was time for a little bit of payback.”
Notre Dame followed up that win with a victory over ACC rival Virginia, ranked seventh in the country when they came to South Bend. However, after losing the final game of their homestand to Michigan, the second half of the season was plagued by inconsistency for the Irish. After losses to top-10 ranked Syracuse and Duke, Notre Dame picked up a road win at Marquette before narrowly falling to North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
“Recently Marquette was a big win just because it was kind of righting the ship for us after a couple of losses,” Sexton said. “That was good to get back on the horse there and ride that one into hopefully a series of a couple more wins. But at this point we’re just taking it one at a time.”
In spite of the bumps in the road, the Irish have managed to piece together a 6-5 record, worthy of the No. 18 ranking in the Inside Lacrosse NCAA poll and the eighth spot in RPI.
“It’s kind of tough to look too far ahead when you’re in a situation like we are right now where we likely need to win the majority of the games left the rest of the year that we have to play if we want to solidify any kind of playoff hopes,” Sexton said. “We’re taking it one game at a time right now. The second you start looking past that, you let one slip by. At this point we don’t really have that kind of luxury to let one slip.”
Sexton and the Irish will compete in the ACC Championship beginning Friday, April 27, with a rematch against Duke in Charlottesville, Virginia. They also host their last regular-season non-conference matchup against Army on May 5 as a final tune-up before the NCAA Championship.
— ND —
Tyler Testin is a student intern for Fighting Irish Media, working with the lacrosse and basketball teams. The sophomore electrical engineering major also competes for Notre Dame’s rugby club and is a native of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
The University of Notre Dame men’s lacrosse team pursues excellence on and off the field through the three pillars in which the program is built: Character, Culture & Community. These three foundational values guide the promise of the program, which is to provide its student-athletes with the most compelling and enriching experience in all of college athletics. Through academics, competition, service and travel, the program aims to immerse its players in situations that enhance their student-athlete experience to help them become the people, students and teammates they aspire to be.
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