Makenna Barnett-Suey will don NSW colours at the nationals for the fourth time later this year.
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The Tamworth young gun, along with Hockey New England's Riley 'Pip' Constable, was on Tuesday night named in the NSW Blues under 18s side to contest the national championships in Hobart in July.
She has previously played with the under 13s and under 15s, and last year co-captained the NSW Stars side to bronze at the under 15s championships.
The 18s sides were finalised following the state championships at Narellan on the weekend where Barnett-Suey and Constable were standout performers for their respective Tamworth and New England sides.
Both sides played in Division 2 with New England going on to finish runner-ups and Tamworth reaching the semi-finals.
Tamworth coach Helen Willis was happy with the weekend from their perspective.
She had a young side with Bridget Tydd the only player too old for next year.
"We got to the semi-finals, which was really good," Willis said.
After good wins over Illawarra South Coast (2) (9-0) and Northern Sydney & Beaches (2) (3-0) to start their campaign on Friday, they drew with Bathurst (1) 2-all first-up on Saturday before beating Far North Coast 2-nil.
Willis said both were tough games and was proud of the way they "stood up to the other teams".
It was enough for the Frogs to, on goal difference, finish on top of their pool and advance to the semi-finals.
As the top-ranked side in their pool they avoided a semi-final showdown with their northern neighbours, drawing Sydney East (1).
Going down 3-nil, Willis said it "just wasn't our day", the toil of a tough campaign and for some of the side five days of tough hockey, with several involved in the Combined Catholic Colleges carnival during the week, catching up with them.
"We didn't make our traps and our passing was not connecting quite as well as it had been," she said.
"SEHA were quite bustly as well so really put us under the pump."
"But they all tried their hardest. But by then the injuries were starting to mount in that they couldn't run as hard as they'd been able to."
She did give a shout out to Tydd's father, and local physio Simon, who was "a godsend", attending to players and enabling them to get on the field each day. If not for him they probably would have been players down, she said.
One of the most pleasing aspects of the carnival was their defence. Until the semi-final they only conceded two goals.
The Tamworth 2's also had a good weekend. The Gabbi D'Ambros-coached side just fell short of the title in Division 4 going down to Southern Highlands (2) 3-1 in the final.
