Sabrina Vaillancourt is used to winning.
She played in two Eastern Maine championships and one state final when she was playing field hockey at Nokomis High School in Newport.
Her Husson University field hockey teams won two North Atlantic Conference tournament championships, which earned the Eagles NCAA Division III Tournament berths.
The all-time scoring leader at Nokomis and Husson finds herself trying to put the building blocks in place to eventually return Nokomis to elite status in Eastern Maine Class B in her first season as the head coach.
Katie Thompson guided the Warriors to an 18-0 season and a state championship in 2013 but left after the season to take a job with the Portland-based Great Schools Partnership.
Kristy Veazie Staples, who had been the assistant coach at Nokomis for two years, was the head coach last year when the Warriors went 5-8-1 and missed the playoffs.
She left for personal reasons, according to Nokomis athletic director Mark Babin.
Even though Vaillancourt’s team is off to a 2-4 start, she said she has a “very young group” and is encouraged about the future.
“Eventually, when the young girls become stronger, more mature and more aggressive, we’ll be strong again,” said Vaillancourt. “Right now, we need to work on our maturity, strength and confidence. The girls aren’t confident right now. We stress it and, eventually, it will come.”
Nokomis has 15 freshmen and sophomores among 24 players. Seven starters are either freshmen or sophomores.
“She is doing a great job. I’m very happy with her,” said Babin. “She’s a good, young coach. The profession needs more coaches like her with her passion and enthusiasm.”
Vaillancourt, who just turned 23, graduated with a degree in business management from Husson in 2014. and served as an assistant coach under Jamie (Flagg) Emerson at Old Town High School last fall.
After her playing career had ended, Vaillancourt decided she wanted to get involved in coaching.
“I didn’t want to lose the game I loved. I have great passion for it, and coaching enabled me to stay in the field hockey world,” she said.
She said she benefited from coaching with Emerson last fall.
“I had learned from her when she was an assistant coach at Husson,” said Vaillancourt. “Because we had such a good relationship, she let me co-coach with her at Old Town instead of us having two separate roles. It was a great chance for me to find my coaching voice.”
Vaillancourt, who also played basketball and softball at Nokomis, said she is enjoying her job and that the players have been receptive.
She had 68 goals and 18 assists during her 73-game Husson career and said it is ironic that goal scoring has been her team’s “weak spot.”
The Warriors have scored just five goals in their first six games.
“They don’t have the inner drive [to score goals] yet. We’re working on getting them to be goal-hungry,” she said.