PORT Macquarie will hope the experience of Maddi Drewitt and Zara Ferguson along with Eve and Teleah Walker can help them qualify for finals day at Wagga Wagga this weekend.
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The association will send one of their strongest representative hockey teams in recent history to the under-15 girls field state hockey championships with high expectations.
Coach Graeme Ferguson said most of the group had been playing together since under-11s.
"Half of last year's under-15s are still there and we've got the top age under-13 kids from last year coming through into that team," he said.
"Both of those age groups have had success particularly the group we've got together now."
They won the under-13 carnival two years ago and they backed it up with a win in the indoor state championships in the same age group.
Ferguson and the team know what to expect after being caught "off guard" in a competition-opening 6-0 defeat to Goulburn 12 months ago.
The key to preventing a repeat is being ready to hit the ground running despite the possibility of temperatures hovering around freezing for their first game at 8am on Friday morning.
The mercury is expected to reach a maximum of just 10 degrees over the weekend.
"We don't know how they're going to go with the cold weather," Ferguson said.
"They're good enough if they're switched on to match it with any of these teams, but last year we got found out in our first game.
"We were down 5-0 at halftime."
Port Macquarie would be confident of improving on last year's performance with most of the team now exposed to high-level competition locally.
"Our goal this year will be to make the semi-finals and if we make that, you never know," Ferguson said.
"We might get lucky and go one further.
"Most of them are playing in our Premier League division because they've reached that age where they're playing at the highest local level."
Ferguson said their recent run of success as a group gave the association confidence they could progress deep into the competition.
"They've had a lot of success and that breeds that success into the playing group that comes through and they're high achievers," he said.
"Half the team have certainly won state championships in different divisions and ages so they're used to it.
"It's a different level, but these girls have lifted their own level by playing at a higher local level and we expect them to go well and they expect themselves to go well."
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