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Shaddock leads team with assist from Clarkson
By Aaron Garland
On April 26, 2012
It was a two-for-one deal for the Buffalo State women's lacrosse program. When head coach Meg
Stevens travelled to Corning on a recruiting trip, she had no way of knowing she would come away with
one, let alone two, of the best lacrosse players in NCAA Division III history.
Seniors Karen Shaddock and Kendyl Clarkson were longtime teammates on a travel team in their
hometown of Corning who decided to continue playing together at the collegiate level.
The pair has re-written the Buffalo State record books in the process, with the most recent record falling
when Shaddock recorded her 400th career point last week, joining Cortland player Lindsay Abbott as
one of four Division III players ever to reach the milestone.
"Actually, I never even thought about it," Shaddock said of hitting the milestone. "But it's pretty cool
now that it has happened. I didn't know that it was such a big deal."
That says a lot about Shaddock who, despite her standing as one of the best Division III lacrosse players
ever, has been humble.
"She's not somebody you would meet in a hallway or meet in a classroom," Stevens said, "and you
would know that she leads Division III in points. It's just impressive to know that when you have a player
like that, she can just do some things that are innate."
Clarkson agreed.
"She's not going to tell you her accomplishments," Clarkson said. "She's always composed on and off the
field. She's not going to tell you what she's won, you're not going to know whether she's good or not."
Shaddock currently has 415 career points, which is third all-time in Division III. It's unlikely that she'll
catch the first place total of 500, but second place - 440 points - is within reach. Though happy with
her individual accomplishments, Shaddock still sees overall team success as the ultimate objective.
"My biggest goal here was to win a SUNYAC championship, and we have yet to do it," she said. "That's
still my biggest goal."
A key person in recruiting both Shaddock and Clarkson to Buffalo State was former Bengals assistant
coach Renee Carlineo. She served as an assistant to Stevens from the fall of 2007 until February of this
year, before leaving to become the assistant Athletic Director at RIT.
Carlineo was a junior varsity coach at Shaddock's high school, Corning East, where she played for the JV
team as an eighth grader in Carlineo's first year there. Carlineo coached Shaddock and Clarkson on their
travel team the following two summers, and noted it was clear there was something extraordinary while
watching them play together at a young age.
"They have a very special connection on the lacrosse field," Carlineo said of the duo. "It was something
that was evident from the time they were in middle school and playing together.
"We would take them to tournaments all over the place, and people would ask what college they were
going to, and they were in eighth grade, ninth grade," Carlineo continued. "They just always had a very
unbelievable ability to read each other, and to understand the game of lacrosse."
Clarkson, the Robin to Shaddock's Batman, or vice-versa, has had a tremendous career in her own right.
She has 355 career points, also making her one of the most accomplished players in Division III history,
and has made the goal call "goal by Shaddock, assisted by Clarkson" a very popular one at SUNYAC
school facilities.
Though it's likely that point totals would still be high without playing together, Clarkson agreed that
playing with Shaddock and the chemistry they developed through the years has been the biggest
contributor to the success of the pair.
"We started playing together in like sixth grade, and it's always been very easy for the two of us to play
together," she said. "It's more fun than anything because we can just really fool around and it ends up
with goals and assists. We can read each other very easily - I know exactly what she's going to do, when
she's going to do it."
Shaddock and Clarkson's storied Bengals careers will come to an end this season, but their mark on the
school has been stamped.
"They're in Buff State history, but they're in NCAA Division III lacrosse history," Stevens said. "They're
hard, hard shoes to fill. It will leave our program with a hole, but hopefully a great opportunity for these
players to have played with great players like that will help put our program on the map, which will
therefore help make better players here."
Aaron Garland can be reached by email at garland.record@live.com
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