SCORING goals as the New South Wales captain while playing on home turf - it's little wonder Lily Kable was smiling on Saturday.
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Before Kable embarks on her maiden Premier League Hockey campaign with St Pat's this season, she has her sights set on helping the NSW State team win gold at the Under 15 Australian Championships.
They are championships being played at the Cooke Hockey Complex as Bathurst hosts a national hockey tournament for the first time. It is an occasion the 14-year-old knows is special.
"It's the best opportunity ever, it's amazing to play here," she said.
"It's really good for Bathurst, it's really good to get Bathurst's name out there and it's just an honour to play in my home town.
"I've captained [NSW] before in 13s, but it's such an honour to do it again here, I'm so blessed. It's a great team, a really solid team, and it's really good to get to play with these girls."
On Saturday morning Kable celebrated with those girls as she scored a double in NSW's 14-0 win over the Victoria Development side.
The first of that double, which came in the 14th minute in a goal-mouth scramble, was her first of the championships.
The other came in the 55th minute as she took position just outside the circle, beat the Victorian skipper, carried the ball inside and while under pressure from two more defenders, blasted her effort into the goal.
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Though scoring goals is nothing new for Kable, that they came while playing at centre-half made them particularly enjoyable.
"It's very different, it's not my usual position at all, I normally play striker, so this role is a bit weird. But I'm definitely getting used to it and that's where my coach likes me," she said. "It's weird not scoring as many goals as I would in striker, but it's fine. It was a bit scrappy that first one, but at least I've got one now, I was yelling at one of my strikers not to touch it."
Kable added two more goals to her tally later that afternoon - both from penalty corners - as NSW beat ACT 5-0, while on Sunday morning against Western Australia Gold it was the skipper who sealed a comeback win.
Her goal off a penalty corner after the siren saw NSW came from from three goals down to draw 3-all.
It means Kable's NSW side goes into the rest day on Monday undefeated and on track to fulfil their mission to become national champions.
"Winning gold, that's out main goal, that's what we are here to win," Kable said.
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