Coming from a household where team sports were an integral part of everyday life, Christina Sabin knew exactly what athletic environment she was after when she tried out for her first lacrosse team. At first she was just tagging along with a friend to try out for a local club team, barely knowing any of the rules, but eventually the sport stuck.

“My first year was miserable,” Sabin said. “I hated it. I didn’t know how to do anything; from passing to shooting the ball, I didn’t understand any of it.”

But rather than quit after her terrible experience, she told herself that going into high school, she would try out for the school team, just to see what would happen. Little did she know, the sport would eventually become her passion and the very thing she’d be inspiring other girls to give a shot.

“I had a blast,” Sabin said, crediting her amazing high school lacrosse experience to her high school coach — an old school New Yorker with a Brooklyn accent. “He was just really ‘nitty gritty,’ but honestly one of the best coaches I’ve had. Without him I wouldn’t have found my passion for the sport and my love for being a team player.”

And it was due to this newfound passion for the sport that Sabin felt she could continue to play through college. She went on to play Division 3 lacrosse at Occidental College, where she received her bachelor’s in art and art history. While playing at Occidental College, she found many life-long friends in her teammates, and that camaraderie is something that she still cherishes today.

The new girls lacrosse coach Sabin hopes to carry that support over to the Los Altos High School lacrosse team. She wants her players to love the sport and aims to further expand the program — which is known for being notoriously small — to have a junior varsity team to play parallel to the varsity team.

“While my goal this season is to obviously win some games, I do hope to be able to share some of the lessons that I learned as a player with my future team,” Sabin said.

Going into this upcoming season, Sabin hopes to build the team around a strong defensive side, as she believes in order to have a strong offensive you must have a solid defense — a result of her time as a defensive player in college. She translates this same coaching principle to her two club teams: Team NorCal and the Tomahawks Lacrosse Club, a travel team based in Palo Alto.

“My ultimate goal this season is to make my team into better players and better people, just like my high school coach did for me,” Sabin said.