Senior helps North girls’ lacrosse to win
By: Justin Feil
Coaches agree.
Shannon Bulk is a player that anyone would be happy to have on his or her team.
That makes Beth Mitchell and Kevin Mackenzie two of the luckiest coaches around the area. Mackenzie coached Bulk on the West Windsor-Plainsboro North girls’ soccer team last fall.
"My first impression of her as a freshman was that she was strong, fast, and very athletic," said Mackenzie. "She’s really a gifted athlete. Shannon is also a fierce competitor. She gives 100 percent every time she’s on the field, and never backs down from anyone. Shannon is also very coachable. She started out as a forward during her freshman and sophomore seasons and ultimately became our defensive midfielder this year. She eagerly accepted that role and did an outstanding job against some very talented players.
"We have a very close soccer team, and Shannon is a big reason for that. She is a great leader, and the girls genuinely like and respect her. Shannon is also a lot of fun to coach. She has a way of making the coaches and team laugh at just the right time. It helps everyone to keep the game in the proper perspective. Shannon is just a wonderful young lady both on and off the soccer field. It has truly been a pleasure being her coach."
Bulk is on to her top sport this spring, where Mitchell is coaching Bulk in her final scholastic season of lacrosse with the Knight girls. Mitchell echoes Mackenzie’s praise for the senior, who will go on to play lacrosse at Massachusetts next year.
"She’s such a hard worker," said Mitchell after Bulk scored five goals in a 12-6 win over West Windsor-Plainsboro South on Thursday. "She has 1,001 qualities you’d like. Her work ethic, her leadership, everything, the way she’s able to run up and down the field, she can play attack, midfield or defense. You give her a job and she’ll do it. You can’t not love her."
Next year, it will likely be defense at UMass. This year, it’s attack for the Knights, who improved to 3-3 with their third straight win of the season. Bulk leads the team with 20 goals.
"I’m only out there to work hard," said Bulk, who scored 17 goals last year. "I’m always working. There may be girls who have better skills, but I’ll work hard. That’s the way this team is. No matter what we’re up against, we’re always up for the challenge."
Things could have looked bleak for the Knights after they started the season 0-3, but they’ve risen and responded to the challenge with a three-game winning streak. In the win over South, the Knights looked nothing like a team that was winless after three games lost by a total of six goals.
"The most frustrating thing is the one-goal games," Bulk said. "You know it’s right there. I just thought that we didn’t lose, we just ran out of time. If we had 30 more seconds, we would have won."
WW-P North made sure it didn’t come down to a nail-biter against South. They jumped out to an 8-0 lead with four goals from Bulk before the Pirates outscored them, 6-4, over the final 26 minutes of the game. The Pirates scored twice in the final minute of the first half and equaled North, 4-4, in the second half.
"That’s kind of been the story of our season," said WW-P South coach Kris Javick, whose team fell to 1-4. "We pick it up and then we run out of time. We’ve been coming back and running out of time all year. It’s something we’re focusing on coming out strong.
"I knew they would be back. It’s just a matter of getting our game, getting our tempo going, and I knew we’d move down the field. They knew it too. They didn’t give up. They came back fighting."
The Pirates put up quite a fight, led by Danielle Martinez, their goalie who made 15 saves to keep them close throughout the contest.
"She had a huge game today," Javick said. "She was making amazing saves. She stepped up big-time today."
In the end, however, it was too tough to overcome the Knights’ fast start. That start was a key to the North win, and something new for them as well.
"We’ve been talking lately about how we’ve been a second-half team," Bulk said. "I agree that this is the first game we stepped up and were really focused to start. You could tell it made a difference.
"It’s South," she added. "That gives you the first burst of adrenaline."
Bulk and the Knights hope to keep that fast start in mind as they take on teams that don’t fall in the rival category. The Knights were scheduled to play Hopewell Valley on Monday and are at Lawrence on Wednesday.
"We were missing three girls who were down on the Washington trip," Mitchell said. "Our girls stepped it up. We had girls step up who don’t really start. We had a shorter bench, so it was tougher. I’m very pleased with their performance.
"The first half I was really pleased. The girls played so well. They were patient on offense and aggressive on defense. I would say so far that has been our best first half. We’ve been working on certain aspects of our game and there were some improvements there."
Bulk, as usual, was solid for the Knights. In one stretch of 4:17, she scored three goals to give North a 6-0 lead, all the goals that it would need.
"She was solid," Mitchell said. "Shannon is near unstoppable. She’s a key. I don’t think there’s been that great a change in her this year. I do find she has that feeling, she feels that need to stay up every game. She has that desire."
Bulk hasn’t changed the way that she’s gone about playing. That’s just as intense as ever. It’s taken longer to get used to being a senior on the Knights lacrosse team.
"All of us seniors, you never really think about it, you have elders to look up to on the field and now it’s our turn to be the elders," Bulk said. "It’s taken me time to adjust to it. I love it. You get to help one another out and be there for the team. And we’re beginning to learn to take advice from our younger teammates. You have to be open-minded to all, to perspectives from everyone."
Bulk is certainly a teammate worth listening to. She’s set an example of how to play the game, and the Knights seem to be following her hard-working lead as they have turned around their season.
"Now we’re starting to pick up momentum," Bulk said. "The first couple games, we were seeing what we have. We seem to be putting it together very well. I’m proud of everyone."