St. Paul's senior Alex McGovern hardly ever puts his lacrosse stick down.
Crusaders' coach Rick Brocato was especially aware of the star midfielder's heft work rate in recent months, and he didn't like it.
"I would be on campus and Alex is shooting by himself on the upper field, maybe so I don't see him," Brocato recalled. "He takes a 100 shots after practice at home. I told his dad, Chris, 'He needs to take a break."
Even so, that kind of dedication paid off for the 2015 Towson Times male Lacrosse Player of the Year.
Possessing a solid all-around game, McGovern was a force for the Crusaders a year after missing about half the season because of a sports hernia injury that required surgery.
“I just want to keep getting better and better,” McGovern said. “I just want to keep going, going and going. I don’t really want to stop until I can say, ‘I want to be the best that I can be.’”
The Under Armour All-American finished the season with 41 goals, 25 assists and 64 ground balls on a St. Paul’s team loaded with Division I recruits.
The 6-foot-2, 180-pound McGovern will play college lacrosse next season at the University of North Carolina.
“He had an amazing season,” Loyola Blakefield senior attacker Ryan Conrad said of his future Atlantic Coast Conference rival. “It’s really hard to play against him. He always gives everything he has. He plays offense and defense. He is so competitive. He gives 100 percent all the time.”
Brocato has seen a lot of players come and go in his 28 years as a head and assistant lacrosse coach.
He knows McGovern’s departure will be leave a particularly large void.
“You just don’t get a lot of guys like Alex McGovern every year,” the coach said. “When you have him, you cherish him. You understand that he is really special. He is so well-rounded and extremely coachable.”
Brocato said McGovern is St. Paul’s most relentless player at both ends of the field.
“He gets a lot of credit for his offensive skills because he has a cannon of a shot,” Brocato said. “But he loves playing one-on-one defense. He also loves being the guy that clears the ball. He was the middie we dropped down right away so the goalie could find him away. He would typically take it the length of the field.”
The co-captain might be the Crusaders’ version of an “Ironman.”
“This year, he was closest thing to one of those 60-minute guys,” Brocato said. “He had on his mind that he would run on two shifts: the first and second midfield. There were times when we had to drag Alex off the field because he wouldn’t want to come off. But that’s who Alex is. He is a tireless worker.”
That was never more evident in the offseason. McGovern badly wanted to have a strong season in 2015 after missing 10 games last year.
“I knew he was upset about it,” Conrad said. “I talked to him a couple of times about it. I think it motivated him to come back and really work on his game.”
McGovern had some memorable games for Crusaders, who went 13-6 and lost in a Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association playoff semifinal to St. Mary’s.
He led St. Paul’s to an upset 12-10 win over defending league champion Boys’ Latin in the regular-season finale with five goals and an assist May 5.
“He really shined the bigger the stage,” Brocato said. “He had three of the first four goals in the first half and then got the game-winner.”
McGovern also helped the Crusaders to a triumph over St. Mary’s in Annapolis on April 14 with a four-goal performance.
“We needed a win badly,” Brocato said. “We had like eight guys injured. From the very first whistle, Alex took over the game.”
Once the high school season ended, McGovern sharply focused his efforts on making the U.S Men’s Under-19 National Team.
Tryouts are at the end of July at Goucher College.
“It’s something I am working toward,” he said. “I really want to make the Under-19 team. So I have been really working out, lifting and running a lot.”