(Photo: Jack Harris/WCSN)
Of the 40-some voices echoing off the inflated maroon and white walls of the Verde Dickey Dome in Tempe during Arizona State’s women lacrosse practice, one shout rang louder than the rest.
Attacker and co-captain Kerri Clayton was stationed on the left wing of the Sun Devils’ offensive box, emphatically calling for the ball. When a pass inevitably came, the junior exploded to her right, dodging defenders as she effortlessly glided toward the goal, her stick performing the job of a slingshot as it circled around her right ear and unfurled the yellow ball in a blur into the upper right corner of the goal. Sun Devil goalie Berkeley Bonneau had little chance at a save.
“Some people might be hesitant to shoot,” Bonneau said. Her roommate, Clayton, is not one of them. “Kerri is ripping her shot as hard as she can, placing it every time.”
As the white mesh-netting of the goal exploded, ASU’s leading scorer and reigning national player of the week leaped up, producing another yelp of elation as she clicked her heels together in the air. Goal-scoring celebrations have become the new norm in Clayton’s new reality – leading the new Sun Devil program from the front.
“I know what needs to get done and I get it done,” Clayton said, exuding a rare mix of modesty and confidence. “I’m a very vocal person. The younger girls will see me as an upperclassman and follow in suit. When I work hard, others work hard.”
Clayton has netted 16 goals in just three games this season, becoming the early offensive star on ASU’s debuting team. She has looked nothing like a player who contemplated quitting the sport two years ago.
In her freshman season, the Baltimore native got lost in the shuffle at Jacksonville University, forced to play behind the net in a facilitation-first role during a 2016 season that saw her score just three times in 14 games. By the end of the campaign, Clayton was ready to move on.
“I didn’t know if I was going to be playing lacrosse anymore,” she said, talking to reporters minutes after her heel-clicking celebration. “I didn’t really think I needed to do it.”
She might have followed through on it too, if not for a call from her past coach that opened the door to a renewed collegiate career at ASU.
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Before being hired in late 2015 to start up ASU’s new program, Courtney Martinez Connor had not coached college lacrosse since 2009, when she parted ways with UMBC after a successful five-year tenure at the Baltimore school.
During her coaching hiatus, Martinez Connor had remained in Northern Maryland while working as a lacrosse broadcaster for ESPN and The Big Ten Network. It was there her children attended the St. Paul’s School, a quaint private K-12 prep academy nestled in Baltimore’s northern suburbs with a powerhouse lacrosse program.
Prior to St. Paul’s 2014 season, the team’s coach, Brooke Kuhl-McClelland, split ways with the program after suffering back surgery. Martinez Connor was offered the position.
“You always want to be able to help out, especially if your kids go to the same school,” Martinez Connor said, who at the time was still traveling around the country to broadcast games. “It worked out with my (TV) schedule, I wouldn’t miss any games, so I said, ‘Sure.’’’
One of her best players that season was Kerri Clayton.
Then a high school junior, Clayton scored 50 goals and 13 assists during the team’s run to the state playoffs. She also became a “big sister” mentor to Martinez Connor’s oldest daughter, Acacia, who was beginning the fifth grade at the time.
The connection between Martinez Connor and Clayton formed easily.
Martinez Connor only coached the one season with Clayton, but when she heard about her former player’s single year in Jacksonville, the newly-hired ASU coach reached out.
“Courtney (told me), ‘You know, I think you should come out and look at ASU,’” Clayton said. “…I knew what kind of coach she was and I know what she can push me to do.”
Once uncertain, Clayton’s decision was suddenly obvious.
“She is such a great coach,” she said. “I didn’t want to pass that up, getting to play for her.”
Another persuasive factor for Clayton, a self-described “natural-born leader”, was the chance to instill an original culture with the upstart program.
“No one really gets to start a program,” Clayton said. “Programs start but you don’t (usually) get to be the first people to go.”
So Clayton packed her bags and headed west. She arrived in the Valley last year, one of 16 players to enroll at the school during a purgatory period that featured a full practice-slate and absolutely no official games.
“It was tough. Last year was not fun,” Clayton admitted, recounting the grueling 6 a.m. workouts and 20-hour practice weeks. “You have to keep grinding.”
Last year’s “season” resulted in no wins for the Sun Devils. What it did do was lay the groundwork for the debuting team to build on.
“What they put us through last year, it’s made us be successful,” Clayton said. “The 16 of us knew what you had to do, then the new players followed in.”
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There were more than a few wide eyes when the Sun Devils walked into Fifth Third Bank Stadium two weeks ago, the 8,000-seat palace that played host to ASU’s inaugural game at Kennesaw State in northern Georgia.
Kerri Clayton’s eyes however, were reexamining the venue she had last played competitive lacrosse in, remembering her final game as a member of Jacksonville.
That day, a surprising 9-8 JU loss to Detroit in the Atlantic Sun Tournament in May 2016, Clayton was kept off the scoresheet, a non-factor as her team’s season came to an unexpectedly early end.
She might as well have been a new person during her return visit this spring.
Clayton exploded offensively, scoring seven goals to lead the Sun Devils to a 14-7 win over KSU – a remarkably one-sided victory in the program’s maiden contest. But it wasn’t just Clayton’s scoring that had changed over the two years. Her confidence had burst to new heights too.
“If I go out on the field and carry myself a certain way, defenders take notice and they get a little scared,” Clayton said, manical grin and all. “It’s like a mind game.”
Her bravado fueled her inexperienced teammates too.
“Kerri has confidence like no other. You will never see a girl that has the confidence and carries themselves the way that Kerri does,” said Bonneau, another member of last year’s practice-only squad and one of Clayton’s roommates.
“That leads the attack. It sets the tone for the defense too because we want to get it to that side and she is able to vocally tell girls what to do and then she leads by example, which speaks more than anything else.”
Two days after the season-opening win, Clayton spurred the Sun Devils offense again, scoring five times in their 15-13 defeat of Stetson. A perfect start to the season Clayton has been plotting for almost two years.
“We get to create the culture here,” she said. “Everything we do, we are laying the groundwork. We come out and we work hard, and then the people who have been recruited here know they have to come out and work hard too. (We are) keeping ourselves grounded and know no one else is here to tell us what to do.”
Her dozen opening weekend goals and team’s pair of wins proved to be the fruits of her arduous labor. It also netted Clayton the season’s first Alpha Lacrosse National Player of the Week award. It didn’t change her relentless approach.
“Your spot isn’t set,” she said. “I know, any given day if an attacker outworks me, I won’t be playing.”
Only, that scenario seems unlikely right now, less probable even than her serendipitous reunion with her old high school coach 2,000 miles from home – a connection that has helped spark the newest DI Sun Devil team to a promising start.
Her simply-put goal will take more than a single impressive weekend to achieve:
“We have to set the legacy for what ASU lacrosse is going to be.”
