By LUKE VOOGT
Three local boys will play in School Sports Victoria’s (SSV) under-12 hockey team for the first time at national titles in a few weeks.
Torquay’s Harry Bradbury, 10, Belmont’s Kade Leigh, 11 and Highton’s Jamie van der Ploeg, 12, will begin training with the Victorian team this Sunday.
The boys have been playing since they were five or six, but all narrowly missed out in the trials for the Victorian team last year.
Sandra Bradbury said son Harry had worked hard to make the team.
He tried out last year, aged nine, playing against boys nearing 12, she said.
“This year we had a really good feeling he’d get through. He’s a really determined kid.”
Kade said he was excited about representing the SSV team in Cairns at the end of July.
“I’m looking to learning new skills.”
It will be the second SSV trial for Kade, who plays juniors for Newtown and Altona with Harry.
He’s fast, too, narrowly missing out on a spot in SSV’s 100m sprint team this year.
Jamie is part of the under-14 Geelong Junior Representative Team, which competes in a Hockey Victoria Metropolitan Junior Competition.
He was unlucky to miss out in the SSV trials last year, his mother Katey Smoker said.
“He had a bad trial, although when you’ve got 100 kids competing, it can be hard to be seen.”
The boys have also earned their families a welcome winter reprieve as they travel to sunny Queensland for the championship.
“Going to Cairns is nice when everybody has to stay here in the wet weather,” Katey said.
