Playing on their home turf at St Leonards’ Northern Hockey Centre, the girls’ side won two of their three roster games to reach the final before falling to the unbeaten South Blue 3-0. 

The campaign started off brightly with an 8-0 win over North-West where Ashley Demarco, Millie Smith, Chloe White, Isabella Davie, Gemma Wilkin and Aimee Woodley all hit the scoresheet.

The home side made it two from two when Davie scored the sole strike against South Green, before South Blue ended the streak with a 4-0 win in the final roster game.

Davie and Demarco both netted twice for North and impressed the tournament’s Northern junior co-ordinator Helen Partridge.

“They were definitely the standout team for me on the weekend from a Northern perspective,” Partridge said.

“Both of those players are state representatives in their age group, along with Chloe White, and I think the reason they did so well was because they played as a team rather than individuals.

“These girls normally play against each other in club hockey and they only have a couple of trainings together as a team, so the most important bit is to be able to gel and play together as a team.”

No other Northern sides managed to register a win on a weekend largely dominated by Southern teams, but there was still plenty of cause for optimism.

The girls’ under-15 side played out three games decided by two goals or less, while the two under-18 sides were both competitive.

Partridge said Jacob Morris and Jack Foley had both been standouts for the under-18 boys.

“The results didn’t reflect how close their games were, they were on the losing end in all of them but they were only 1-0 and 2-0 losses.

“The under-13 boys got beaten fairly heavily but their goalkeeper Jai Whitehouse, he did a really good job at keeping the results down and Oliver Stebbings is a great little player and he did a really good job.

“It was a really great weekend for all the kids involved and there were some really strong crowds out there this year as well which was great to see.”