Basti, Sacred Heart 'Living the Dream Right Now'

It all comes down to the difference.

Think about any game or year, any player or program long enough, and it is sort of the holy grail for determining an explanation for what’s happened. What matters, what led to the outcomes and also what is valued in the moment when it is all unfolding.

It — “The Difference” — also happens to be a pregame tradition for the Sacred Heart men’s lacrosse team. One senior speaks at the end of a practice or meal the day before a game about what is the difference for them.

And last Wednesday, it was long stick midfielder Zach Buffington’s turn.

“His was time,” Pioneers coach Jon Basti recalled this week. “Time is finite, you never know when you’re going to have an opportunity like this again, so do everything in your power to take advantage of it. Don’t let it go. We can rest when it’s done. Don’t rest in the middle. Rest at the end. That’s something we’ve spoken about. He was totally on point.”

Three days later, Buffington helped a suffocating defense stymie Manhattan 11-5 in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference title game, earning Sacred Heart its first NCAA tournament berth in program history. The Pioneers (13-4) visit Albany in Wednesday night’s play-in game, owners of the sport’s second-longest active winning streak at 11 games.

Sacred Heart is the only school making its NCAA debut this season, and it’s natural to ask just what the difference is for the Pioneers. Their previous peak in victories since moving to Division I in 2000 was nine. They earned 10 victories over the previous four seasons combined.

Ask around the program, and there was a sense this was coming, even if it wasn’t noticed externally. Look at the way Sacred Heart finished last year, winning five of its last eight. Consider Basti’s enthusiasm for Stoic principles and remaining firmly rooted in the moment and a process-oriented approach.

Ponder, too, the joy that can be unlocked by achieving something for the first time.

“It’s super-rewarding,” said goalie Alex Pazienza, the most outstanding player of the MAAC tournament. “Just being able to accomplish something we’ve set out to do for the past three years I’ve been here. Our whole team has been striving for this goal for the past few years. It’s great, but it’s something we also expected. We knew we’ve been capable of this for a long time.”

HOW DEEP WAS THAT BELIEF? Buffington and Pazienza were talking about winning a MAAC title before the season.

This wasn’t a whim. It was percolating for a while, much like the program.

“I’d say it’s very step by step,” Buffington said. “We say it every day — ‘Build another day and build this day onto the next, and all those blocks will eventually add up.’”

Buffington and Pazienza arrived at Sacred Heart through different paths. Pazienza is a Long Island native, a St. Anthony’s product who didn’t play as a freshman, struggled in six appearances in 2022 and then gradually improved as he grew sure of himself at the college level last year. As a redshirt junior, he ranks seventh nationally with a .569 save percentage.

It makes him an excellent parallel for the Pioneers’ entire program over the last few years.

Buffington’s route was less conventional. He’s a local product, leading New Fairfield (which is almost a 30-mile drive from regular Fairfield, where Sacred Heart’s campus is located) to a couple Connecticut state titles. He chose Hartford, but the Hawks announced a move to Division III after the 2021 season.

As part of the scattering of the roster, Buffington knew his old high school teammate and friend Johnny Morgan was playing at Sacred Heart. Buffington wanted to stay close to home and already knew Basti, so the fit was easy.

Buffington started at Hartford and was a regular in his first year at Sacred Heart, where his competitiveness and effort stood out from the start. But injuries limited him to two games last year, leaving his college career at a bit of a crossroads.

The result this year was an effort that earned him a nod as the MAAC’s top long pole.

“He took it upon himself in the offseason to completely change his outlook on things, completely change himself mentally and make himself better mentally, which I think is why he busted through the ceiling physically,” Basti said. “He allowed himself to do it. He allowed himself to fail. He allowed himself to be in a position where he could possibly fail, and he gave himself that zero out.”

With Buffington serving as a captain and a disruptive force and Pazienza a reliable figure in goal, Sacred Heart knew it had a strong defense. It was a fine complement to an attack led by Morgan O’Reilly, who ranks second in Division I with 54 goals.

It’s also a unit that isn’t easily flustered. So, when Manhattan closed the first quarter with a 4-2 lead on Saturday, Pazienza bounded toward the sideline with a message for Pioneers defensive coordinator Will Fox: The Jaspers were going to finish the game with four goals.

It was almost as good as his preseason prediction. Manhattan only scored once more, with 4:06 remaining. The Pioneers’ defense sealed the victory with more than 43 minutes of shutout ball.

“I believed what I said,” Pazienza said. “I didn’t think these guys were going to score anymore. We almost called our shot.”

Added Buffington: “We believed that as a group, and we almost got it done. We let one slide late in the fourth quarter, and that’s one we definitely wish we could get back, but the belief in this group to stick together and work hard — possession after possession, stop after stop, that’s kind of what we counted on as a unit this entire year.”

And when the clock expired, it really was Sacred Heart’s time.

“Memories for a lifetime — everybody says it,” Pazienza said. “We were talking about in the huddle before the game, 60 minutes for the rest of your life. There was nothing left to save it for. Obviously, now we have another game to play, so we’re ready for that. We did everything we could to get the job done.”

THIS ISN’T BASTI’S FIRST TIME IN MAY with a first-time postseason participant. Back in 2011, he was an assistant at Hartford when the Hawks broke through for the first of their two America East tournament titles.

“That was so cool,” Basti said. “Thinking back to that time, I remember it being, ‘Oh my God, we have to play Cornell’ and not understanding the ramifications of what we had done. It wasn’t like I wasn’t enjoying things or the situation. It was more like, ‘We won, and now we have to go play the No. 1 team in the country. I have to come up with a game plan to stop Rob Pannell.’”

This time it was different, and not just because he was a head coach. He took a few moments before the MAAC semifinals to take a few deep breaths and appreciate how much the Pioneers had accomplished by racing through the league’s regular season without a loss.

Not just that, they brushed off an 0-3 start that included one-goal losses to Merrimack and Holy Cross. That might have been a cause for concern for some coaches.

Yet in that moment, Basti thought about how he works with one of his best friends, assistant Chris Doctor, and has grown close to the two other members of the staff; how one of his sons is on the roster and another is coming next year; how supportive Sacred Heart’s athletic director and deputy athletic director have been.

“I swear to God, I feel like the luckiest dude on Earth right now,” Basti said. “I told our guys at one point during the season after our Holy Cross game, I want you guys to fulfill your dreams because I’m lucky enough to be fulfilling mine right now. I am coaching Division I lacrosse. Pardon my French, ‘Holy s---.’ … I’m living the dream right now, and I wanted that for them.”

This was not a new sentiment. It’s a significant part of how the Pioneers build their roster, attracting players drawn by Basti’s verve and consistency.

“He caught my attention because of the type of person he was,” Pazienza said. “He really gets the guys to practice what they preach. He does a great job of having everybody’s back. It made it easy for me to know when I was coming here that it would be a great fit for me and also a great opportunity to do something nobody’s done before. This program has been through it all, pretty much everything except for winning a championship.”

Until Saturday, anyway. As the game concluded, some players surrounded Basti on the sideline while others grabbed a jug of water. Basti had a choice: He could stand still and take the shower or be held.

“It was so cool,” Basti said. “It was literally cool. I was freezing cold.”

By the time he dried off and the Pioneers got back to the locker room, he had 350 texts awaiting him. Some from players he worked with at Lafayette and Fairfield and Hartford and Eastern Connecticut. Some from former colleagues. Others from friends.

It was above all two things, humbling and overwhelming.

But it was also something to be savored.

“Those moments — who knows when that will happen again, or if it will happen again,” Basti said. “So, you have to take advantage of those moments when they happen. It’s something we’ve talked about over the last few weeks a lot.”

And for the Pioneers, it’s been at least part of the difference.