Year 9 Maribyrnong Sports Academy students Juliette Sheriff, Enya Talbot, Alannah Hibbard, and Year 10 athlete Jade Robertson have recently been part of a successful Victoria U16 Girls Hockey team at the National Championships defeating Tasmania in the bronze medal game to finish third.
The girls were selected for the squad back in June of this year and after 2 nights training per week for 2 months they competed in the championships at Southport playing on the same hockey field that was recently used for the Commonwealth Games.
While Juliette and Jade had a great tournament, it was Enya who was selected for the Australian national team which will compete in the World Championships in Germany during May of 2019.
“I’m honoured to have been selected for Australia from the recent National Tournament.” said Enya. “To make an Australian team is every hockey’s players dream and a great opportunity to shine on the international stage.”
For Juliette and Jade just being a part of the Nationals is something that they look forward too, having been involved in the last 6 and 5 years respectively.
“The conditions were really tough during the tournament with the temperature reaching 25 -27 most days, also the humidity was really zapping on your energy.” said Juliette.
Jade says losing to NSW and Queensland in the pool games made life tough for the Victorians heading into medal qualification. “ We only lost 1-0 in both those games , and had we of beaten NSW in the pool games we would have advanced to the final against Queensland.
Meanwhile two of our male student athletes Cooper Burns and Kean Weerasekera played in the Victorian U16 boys team also winning bronze in their championship. Cooper also selected in the Australian Male U16 team. “ I’m really happy to be a part of the Australian Squad. When they called out the Victorian players, they read them in alphabetical order and because my name starts with 'B' I was called really early. Hearing my name called out gave me goose bumps and I felt so proud to walk up to collect my plaque.”
Cooper's tour will finish in Germany at the World Champs, but will also take in other European cities. “ We travel to Germany, France, The Netherlands and Belgium as part of the tour for training and games.”
All players are now preparing with their respective local clubs for finals which will be played in the upcoming weeks. We wish them all the best.