Northwestern University Athletics
Four #B1GCats Inextricably Linked as Big Ten Freshmen of the Year
6/8/2015 11:08:00 AM | Softball, Women's Golf, Women's Lacrosse, Women's Tennis
NUsports.com Special Contributor Skip Myslenski sits down with NU's four spring Freshmen of the Year
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
They landed in Evanston last fall, this quartet of disparate talents culled from various pinpoints on the map. The first, the golfer Hannah Kim, came from the San Diego area, where she had attended a high school (Otay Ranch) located just five miles from the U.S./Mexico International border. The second, the tennis player Erin Larner, came from Portland, where she had attended a high school (Jesuit) whose alumni include the Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra. The third, the softball player Sabrina Rabin, came from just 46 miles up the road in St. Charles. But the fourth, the lacrosse player Selena Lasota, had roots in the indigenous Canadian group called the Katzie First Nation and came from Campbell River, British Columbia, which is 1,876 miles from Chicago.
Still, despite their divergent launch points, they were linked by their skill in their respective sport and by something else as well. "I didn't expect anything coming into Northwestern," says Kim, verbalizing that second link. "I knew the team was solid and I didn't think I was going to be in the lineup because everybody was so good."
"I knew I was coming to a really great team and they had a really great history," echoes Larner. "So I wasn't really sure where I was going to fit in in the lineup."
"I don't think I had any expectations either," says Lasota. "I just wanted to contribute to my team. I knew the history of Northwestern lacrosse is so successful and I knew that there are amazing players on the lacrosse team. So I just wanted to help them and have them help me, which they did in every single way possible."
"I just wanted to come in and contribute any way I could to the team," says Rabin. "I knew there were some really great people (on it) and I just wanted to do whatever job was needed."
There was no guarantee then that they would flourish, no certainty even in their own minds, but flourish each of them did. Rabin would hit .394 and score a team-high 50 runs and succeed on 28 of her 32 stolen-base attempts. And Lasota would score a team-high 69 goals and chip in nine assists and finish with a team-high 78 points. And Larner would go 29-12 in her matches, tying for the team lead in wins, and Kim would earn seven top-20 finishes while posting five rounds in the 60s and 13 of par-or-better.
So here they were linked by one more fact, their individual success, and with that came a final link that inextricably bound them together in an exclusive club. For each, at her season's end, was honored as the Big Ten's Freshman of the Year in her respective sport.
• • •
She wanted no part of it and so, when her father said let's hit the golf course, Hannah Kim would grab the stairway bannister and hold on tight as he tried to pull her free. "I was literally parallel to the ground," she recalls with a chuckle. "I just didn't want to go. It was absolutely horrible. I absolutely hated it (golf). I didn't have enough patience for it. I just wanted to stay home all day. But my dad persuaded me to drive the golf cart when he played. That was one thing that got me into golf."
She flourished quickly once she did get into it, so dominating the field of nine-and-10 year olds that her father skipped her over the 11-12 division and threw her up against opponents 13 and 14. In her first competition there, she finished dead last. "That was definitely a big discouragement for me because I was winning all the tournaments back in my own division," she remembers. "To be last in the tournament with bigger girls, it was tough. But I think my dad knew I was going to fight out of it because he knows with failure comes success. You need to fail in order to succeed. That kind of motivated me."
But, it is pointed out, that could also have had the opposite effect and alienated her from the game.
"I could have gone down that path," she admits. "But my dad just kept pushing me, like, `You're so much better than the other girls.' He just kept reminding me I had so much potential. Same with my mom, same with my sister. Everyone was really supportive."
Larner, as a child, played basketball and soccer as well as tennis, but then came that hoops practice when she broke her finger. That day, she recalls, "My mom told me, `I think tennis might be a little bit better path for you,' that I might have a little bit higher chance of being successful at that. Then right after I broke my finger, I sprained my ankle like a week later at practice. Then my mom's like, `OK. Basketball's not for you. You're way too clumsy.'
"Soccer, I really enjoyed soccer when I was younger. But slowly I started to pick tennis because I like the individual part of it a little bit better. I like the team aspect we have now (with the `Cats). That's been really refreshing, being back on a team. But (I like) the aspect of when you're out there, you have to figure it out for yourself, you have to get through the match, you're going to win or lose because of what you do, not what other people are doing."
She did that so well that she won four state championships and did not lose a match while in high school, but still her time then was not all sea shells and balloons. For Saige, her older (by two years) brother, suffered from a rare genetic disorder, and through their formative years together was diagnosed with scoliosis; had corrective back surgery; and underwent life-threatening surgery after doctors discovered he had a brain tumor. "My inspiration," Larner calls her brother, who now lives in San Diego and watched her play last month when the `Cats competed in the NCAA tourney at UCLA.
"He's always been a role model for me showing strength and courage and all these great attributes. He's really inspired me and, I guess, given me a little bit more fire."
Rabin, in turn, started out as a figure skater and, she recalls, "I loved being out there and performing." But her mom had once played softball and so early on she too gravitated to that sport, where the leg muscles she had built up would eventually serve her well. Still, when she took up the game as a 10-year old, she was not at all accomplished and was exiled to that island of Elba that is commonly called right field. She couldn't hit, that was her problem, couldn't even get the ball out of the infield while batting right-handed, and so one day when she was 11 her coach approached her and told her this. "I can't fix your righty swing," he told her, "so we're going to go lefty."
"That's how I actually started batting left," recalls Rabin, who writes and brushes her teeth and does everything else right-handed. "It just felt a lot better and I could get it out of the infield. It wasn't perfect at first. I definitely had to work at it. But it was certainly better than my righty swing. It felt a lot more natural being on the left side."
And, she is kidded, is this where we say the rest is history?
"Kind of. Yeah," she says with a soft chuckle. "I definitely had a few setbacks. As you get older, it's definitely a transition. I went from a U-14 (team) to a U-18 when I was 14 and you definitely had to get used to the speed of the game."
There was much that Lasota had to get used to when she landed in the Midwest from Campbell River, a small city (pop. 31,186) on the east coast of Vancouver Island that is called the Salmon Capital of the World. There, in a bucolic setting, life moved at a measured pace even as she, while growing up, played box lacrosse against boys and was pushed into motocross by her dad and accompanied that dad on fishing trips that could last as long as eight weeks. "My dad, he's super hard working. So when I'm out fishing, I can't make a mistake and you just have to work hard because we're out there to work," she says when asked how that past influences her present.
"Playing lacrosse with the boys just made me a better player in all aspects. Keeping up with the boys, I had to run as fast as them if I wanted to get the ball, or shoot as hard as them if I needed to score a goal. I think all that has really built me physically and mentally. I wouldn't change any of it. I didn't really drive motorcycles that often, but I guess that just made me tougher too. Whenever I fell, my dad would just tell me to get up and keep going."
That was her history then back in the summer of 2012 when she traveled with Team British Columbia to the President's Cup, a showcase tournament for college hopefuls in Naples, Fla. There, at the age of 17, she would play in just the first girls' field lacrosse game of her life and here she was not accompanied by any outsized ambitions. "I wasn't thinking of my future. I had no idea of what my future would be," she remembers. "I figured I was in Florida playing lacrosse and I'd go back and continue high school, finish that and continue life wherever it took me."
But watching her in Florida was `Cat assistant coach Danielle Spencer, who had been touted to Lasota's special skills by a Vancouver coach, and soon enough she introduced herself to the young player and talked to her about joining the `Cats. "Who's Northwestern?" Lasota famously said at their first meeting.
"I didn't know of Northwestern," she says when asked about that. "But I knew it was a school."
And now that she is at that school, does she ever think how much her life has changed in three years?
"Yep. How suddenly it all changed," she says. "After I talked to Coach Spencer, it all sped up from there. I was studying for the SATs. I was dealing with the recruitment process, everything that goes along with that. I often think of the change, but it's a good change. It's nice."
• • •
They landed in Evanston last fall, this quartet of disparate talents culled from various pinpoints on the map. The first, the golfer Hannah Kim, came from the San Diego area, where she had attended a high school (Otay Ranch) located just five miles from the U.S./Mexico International border. Now she is not only the Big Ten's Freshman of the Year, but its Player of the Year as well. "I didn't expect it at all," she says. I was really surprised. It's another blessing for me."
And to think that she once didn't want to play the game.
"It's really funny to think about," she says with a chuckle. "If I look back to how far I've come, it's amazing where golf has brought me."
The second, the tennis player Erin Larner, came from Portland, where she had attended a high school (Jesuit) whose alumni include the Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra. Now she too is the Big Ten's Freshman of the Year. "When we got back (from break) in January and we started our regular season and I was in the lineup and I had a couple good matches, then I was, `OK, I guess I kind of belong here,'" she remembers. "But I didn't ever expect that my season would go this well. (Winning the award) was a shock. It was a really great honor and I can't wait for next year."
The third, the softball player Sabrina Rabin, came from just 46 miles up the road in St. Charles. Now she also is the Big Ten's Freshman of the Year. "I think as the season went on, I felt a lot more confident and I just wanted to help my team succeed," she says. "I didn't have that many expectations for what I could do. But I knew I wanted to make a difference on the team. I was kind of shocked (when learning of her award). I was just really honored they would pick me. I was really thankful for my team pushing me."
The fourth, the lacrosse player Selena Lasota, had roots in the indigenous Canadian group called the Katzie First Nation and came from Campbell River, British Columbia, which is 1,876 miles from Chicago. Now she is one more `Cat who is the Big Ten's Freshman of the Year. "It was awesome. It was definitely an honor," she says of that award. "Especially just representing British Columbia lacrosse players, girl lacrosse players from British Columbia and Canada. I'm proud to represent the Katzies.
"It's just a very, very big honor and I'm so proud to be able to represent everybody."
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