Bathurst's Lily Kable has helped NSW State book a spot in the semi-finals of the Under 15s Australian Championships after a comfortable win against Queensland Gold at the Cooke Hockey Complex on Tuesday afternoon.
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Needing a win to claim top spot pool B and assure of its spot in the semi-finals, NSW State had it all to play for after holding a narrow 1-0 lead at half-time against Queensland Gold.
But it was a second half onslaught for Kable's girls that made sure NSW State booked its semi-final berth in the national titles.
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The Scots All Saints College student and NSW skipper knew she and the rest of her teammates needed to have their heads switched on during the game, saying Queensland always makes for tough competition
"Queensland always makes for tough competition, so we had to have our head switched on for that game. It was a really good game," she said.
"There's that State of Origin rivalry, so it's always a competitive game but we're so glad we had a win against them. We're just ready to play the other Queensland team if we do."
NSW State opened the scoring three minutes out from the half-time break via Martina Williams, the first of her of three-goal haul.
Williams would score her second four minutes into the third quarter, before Lahni Woodger made it 3-0 seven minutes out from three quarter time.
Williams scored her third goal 10 minutes into the final quarter, before Woodger scored her second goal with the last hit of the game to seal the victory, the team having now won all five matches it had played in.
Kable said it was important for NSW State to come out strong in the second half and finish the job, knowing that anything but a win would see the team miss out on claiming top spot in the pool.
"We just had to keep pushing," she said.
"It was really tight in the first half but we needed to keep pushing. We really wanted the win.
"They made us work for it, for sure. They had a really good defence in that first half. You could tell they wanted the win as well.
"We just sorted out our structure a bit in the second half. We discovered how they played and we had to bring it out a bit more, play our game and not there's. We just had our heads switched on a bit more in the second half."
NSW State has now booked itself a spot in the semi-finals against Victoria - the team that finished second in pool A - in the semi-finals on Wednesday.
"We can't go into this game with Victoria thinking it's going to be easy," Kable said.
"It'll be a hard game, so we'll have to get prepared on Tuesday afternoon for a big game on Wednesday hopefully."
The other semi-final will be contested by Queensland Maroon - the winners of pool A - and Western Australia Gold - the runners-up of pool B.
The semi-final between NSW State and Victoria will get underway from the Cooke Hockey Complex at 1.40pm.
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