Soccer, Lacrosse
Favorite athlete: Mbappe
Favorite team: Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: Making it to district playoffs.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: During a muddy lacrosse game, I went to pick a ground ball with my stick -instead, my stick hit the mud and stopped causing me to face plant into the mud.
Music on playlist: “Don’t stop me now” -Queen, “Touch the sky” -Kanye
Future plans: Go to college
Words to live by: “There’s a positive in everything.”
One goal before turning 30: Travel the US
One thing people don’t know about me: I can bust a move on the dance floor.
By Mary Jane Souder
Jack Sexton is one of those players every coach wants on their team.
Not only because he’s a natural athlete – although that’s certainly part of it, but it’s much, much more.
The Neshaminy senior is captain of a Redskins’ soccer squad that has won just three times in 17 games. Not exactly the kind of season a senior would want in their final high school go-round. Especially one who aspires to play at the next level.
While Sexton wants to win as much as anyone, he has not allowed that to keep him from enjoying the season.
“We still have such a fun time as a team,” he said. “We all love each other, we’re friends outside of soccer. We all hang out together.
“During summer workouts, every night after two-a-days, we’d go out and get food or we’d go bowling or something like that. We’d just hang out and just be together, or we’d be at someone’s house swimming, we’d go to a Union game or something like that. We still have a great time with all the kids. Even the kids on JV, we talk to them, we hang out, we do everything together.
“When I look back on the season, I can’t recall a game really – just all the fun. It’s just so much fun to be on the team in general. That’s the part we love about it.”
Sexton is one of seven seniors on the team, and he saw the writing on the wall three years ago during the fall of 2020, the shortened COVID season.
“Only five of us made the jayvee team that year, and we didn’t have a freshman team so none of the younger kids stuck with soccer,” he said. “We didn’t have a lot of seniors coming up this year, so we knew we were going to be relying on the freshmen to help us out coming up. I was hoping for the best that we’d have a great season, maybe make the playoffs this year, but it just turned out we didn’t. It happens.”
Sexton is a competitor and acknowledges there are moments of frustration, but that’s as far as he will go.
“I try motivating them, I try to keep them together, just staying positive and really that’s it,” he said. “Just staying positive because once you get negative, everything just falls apart. There’s no reason not to be positive with the team. Just being vocal and helping all the guys out and communicating with them.”
Listening to his coach tell it, Sexton is a perfect fit as captain.
“The kids definitely follow his lead as far as him setting an example and working hard – they kind of feed off of him,” Neshaminy coach Tom Foley said. “He’s just a real positive kid. He’s always looking to pick kids up, he’s not critical of anybody. He’s just a classy, classy kid.”
Just how classy Sexton is was underscored when – at the buzzer of a spirited game against a rival school – he had his legs intentionally taken out from under him by an opposing player.
“He got hammered – he could have started an ugly fight, but he just walked away,” Foley said. “What surprised me was why they picked him – he’s the classiest kid on the field. It was right at the end of the game, and he just walked away.”
Sexton’s response would undoubtedly come as no surprise to his lacrosse coach.
“Jack Sexton represents everything that defines an outstanding student-athlete,” Neshaminy coach John Donato said. “Jack seems to always have a positive attitude and loves to be out on the field.
“That sense of joy is contagious and carries over to his teammates whose respect for Jack is evidenced during their everyday interaction, whether it be during practices or game days.”
Sports galore
Sports have always been part of Sexton’s life. As well as his family’s life. His father wrestled at Rider University, his older sister Mia played field hockey at Temple, and Gina is playing soccer at Bloomsburg University.
As a youngster, Sexton was involved in five sports at the same time - football and soccer in the fall, wrestling in winter, baseball in spring while competing in karate as well.
“I just slowly started to drop the sports off,” he said. “I stopped playing football, I stopped doing karate, I stopped playing baseball and started playing lacrosse.”
He stuck with soccer, wrestling and lacrosse until his sophomore year.
“I stopped wrestling because it became way too much,” Sexton said.
His soccer career began playing with the local program in Langhorne until he was in fifth grade and moved to the more competitive club circuit with YMS and has remained with that team to the present.
“The thing I really liked about soccer when I was little – I just liked the people that I had on the team,” Sexton said. “I had more friends on the soccer team, and I enjoyed playing the sport more.
“When it came down to the decision I had to make between football and soccer since they were both the same season – I love both sports now. It was just when I was little I didn’t want to switch from flag football to contact football because I didn’t like getting hit as much. Now I don’t mind it, so now in lacrosse I get all of my hitting.”
Sexton has played numerous positions on the soccer field, beginning with striker and – before long – moving to his present home in the defensive backfield.
As a freshman on the junior varsity, he played left back, and as a sophomore on JV, he was a captain and played center back. As a junior on varsity, he began at outside back but ended up at center back, a position that plays to his strengths. He earned second team all-league in his first season on varsity.
“He’s a really strong marker,” Foley said. “He’s good in the air, he wins balls for us, and he’s a good leader.”
Sexton’s leadership has quite possibly never been more important than this year.
“Playing center back, I’m able to see the whole field, so I’m able to talk to my teammates, explain to them what they should do” he said. “It really helps being in the center back spot, so I can talk to them and lead them through playing the ball.”
Looking ahead
Sexton’s high school athletic career won’t end when his soccer season is over. He will be playing lacrosse this spring.
“I love lacrosse,” he said. “The thing I love about lacrosse the most at high school is I just love the team itself.
“I just loving playing the sport because it gives me something to do, and it’s another thing that’s fun.”
His natural position is defensive middie, but he’s more than happy to play wherever he’s needed and was named team MVP as a junior.
“I have had the fortune to coach Jack as he is a vital member of the lacrosse team,” Donato said. “As an athlete, he has stood out as an exceptionally skilled and intense competitor on the soccer pitch, the wrestling mat, and the lacrosse field. He possesses a terrific work ethic and has always committed himself to advancing and improving his game. In the classroom, Jack’s commitment to his studies is just as formidable where he consistently ranks as a strong honors student.
“Jack is a team leader by example. He is always at the front of the pack when running team sprints and ‘gorillas.’ His speed, strength, athleticism, and relentless competitiveness allow the coaches to leverage his skills in a wide variety of positions and circumstances.
“Last season the coaches almost became too dependent on Jack, relying solely on him to clear the ball out of the defensive zone. He is the hardest working player on the team, yet he is also one of the humblest, kindest, and soft-spoken young men on the field. Jack comes from a wonderful family - his dad and mom are very involved with the Neshaminy High School community, I very much look forward to seeing him again out on the lacrosse field this spring.”
Off the athletic field, Sexton is involved in the skiing/snowboarding and environmental clubs as well as the school’s Mini-THON. An excellent student, his course load includes just one class that is not either honors or AP.
He has not chosen a college but is planning to major in business and is looking to continue his soccer career at the next level.
“I’d really like to play in college,” Sexton said. “If I don’t get an offer from a college I like, I might not play. Say I go to some big school, I’d love to play club for their school and play other sports I never got to play to have fun and meet new people.”
According to his coach, Sexton will be an asset wherever he lands.
“He’s an exceptionally hard worker, he’s always up for a challenge,” Foley said. “He’s a kid you definitely want to have on your team. He’d go through a wall for you.”
