HARTFORD, Conn. – On a night where
Jake Sexton '22 became the 35
th player in program history to reach 100 career points, the No. 15 nationally ranked Wesleyan men's lacrosse team put on a show in the first half, leading 14-2 at halftime before eventually finishing off a 20-14 road win at Trinity on Wednesday night. Wesleyan (9-2, 5-2 NESCAC) has won four straight while the Bantams (5-6, 1-6 NESCAC) have lost five straight conference games.
The Cardinals scored early and often in this one, hitting the 20-goal mark for the seventh time in 11 games this season. Wesleyan's vaunted scoring offense is up to 18.1 goals per game which ranks second in the NESCAC and fifth in the nation. Sexton racked up a game-high seven points (four goals, three assists) while his assist on a
DJ Dixon '24 third quarter goal signaled the 100
th point of his career.
Wesleyan poured it on in the first half, leading 6-1 at the end of the first quarter with goals coming from
Spencer Robbins '22 (twice),
CK Giancola '24 on the man-up,
Justin Hazard '23, Dixon and
Tyler Campbell '25 off a faceoff win in the closing seconds of the frame. The Cardinals shot nearly 50 percent as a team, scoring on 6-of-13 shot attempts in the opening quarter.
The game broke wide open in the second quarter as the Cardinals outscored the Bantams 8-1 in the stanza to sport a 14-2 halftime lead. Sexton scored his first of four on the night while Giancola netted an unassisted tally that made it 8-1. After Trinity answered with their first and only goal of the period, Wesleyan went on a 6-0 run in the final 10+ minutes of play.
Sexton posted a natural hat trick to cap the 6-0 run, kick started by a feed from
Matt May '25 that went down as the first career point for the freshman who was playing in just his second career game.
Wesleyan tacked on one more to start the second half as Robbins scored his third of the night that capped the Cardinal scoring run at seven unanswered. Trinity then answered with two goals just 55 seconds apart but that burst was met with three more Wesleyan goals as
Alex Moynihan '24,
Matt Gill '23 and Dixon all scored in a 3+ minute span to hand the Cardinals their biggest lead of the game at 18-4.
Despite the lobsided score, the Bantams didn't go away quietly as Trinity scored 10 of the final 12 goals on the evening to cut a 14-goal deficit into a six-goal defeat.
Robbins joined Sexton atop the team leaderboard with seven points as the reigning NESCAC Player of the Week finished with the same stat line (four goals, three assists) as his classmate. Dixon posted a career-high five points on two goals and three assists to go along with six ground balls while Hazard racked up two goals and two assists. Giancola, meanwhile, scored three times for his first career hat trick.
Ben Kaplan '22 led the Cardinal defense with two caused turnovers and two ground balls while
Nolan Collins '23 had three ground balls and one caused turnover. Campbell was 9-for-19 at the faceoff X while
Julian Barba '23 finished 7-for-13.
On deck is a big one as Wesleyan heads to No. 8 Tufts on Saturday afternoon in a matchup that pits the top two scoring teams in the NESCAC and two Top 5 scoring offenses in the country against one another for a 1 PM start.
