Port Macquarie Dolphins under-16 girls team are off to the country championship finals on August 4-5

Their under-16 girls team are not content to just only be in the top four teams in country New South Wales – they want to be the best in the state.

Port Macquarie will compete against Newcastle, Illawarra and a combined Queanbeyan/Goulburn team on August 4-5 in Sydney for the right to challenge the top four metro teams in the state.

Coach Nick Prior said the depth of their playing squad had enabled them to progress into the country championship finals.

It is the first time a Port Macquarie under-16 girls team has made it this far.

“It’s really hard to put your finger on what’s clicked for them,” Prior said.

“In the back half of the year they’ve matured and developed into a really strong team.

“We don’t have a great deal of star talent, but we’re a good team; we go 10 deep and a lot of the team with the length of the season struggled with injuries.

“We were fortunate enough to be fit and healthy enough at the right end of the year and obviously in good form.”

The Dolphins have been well led by captain and representative star Maddi Baxter although she has had plenty of help.

“She’s definitely our leader and our point guard,” Prior said.

“She helps us be competitive at this level; it’s like your halfback or quarterback – the point guard runs the show and having her experience is very handy.

“We’ve had two or three of the girls that are in the top 10 scorers for the league so they’ve shared the workload in that respect.

“The fact we’re playing well as a team is giving us the success we’ve had.”

Prior said the side had improved and confidence had grown as the tournament progressed, as evidenced by their 23-point win over Gosford in their last meeting.

“If we’re true to form, we’ve corrected a lot of the results over the course of the year so teams we narrowly lost to in the early parts of the year we were beating to qualify,” he said.

“We lost two games to Gosford during our league rounds and beat them by 23 points to qualify for this tournament.

“We’re definitely hitting our straps at the right time; we just hope they can continue to build and give a good account of themselves.”

The Dolphins coach felt his team were good enough to progress deep into the state finals and perhaps win it.

Should they win the country championship section of the tournament they will head to the state championships on August 25-26.

“It’ll be challenging; there are no easy games left,” Prior said.

“Every game is a tough game so (now) it’s just see how far we can go and dare to dream.”