Golden girl Chloe Barrett stars for NSW in indoor hockey national championships

ORANGE’S Chloe Barrett knew her NSW under 21 side was a serious chance at last week’s Hockey Australia Indoor Australian Championship, but even so, she was over the moon when the sky blues claimed gold.

Barrett starred in the midfield for NSW during the side’s undefeated campaign, which culminated in a 5-nil thrashing of ACT in the gold medal match-up, scoring three goals and setting up countless others.

Not bad, considering she was originally picked as a shadow.

The 17-year-old was lifted into the side when Rachel Divall - another Orange product - was promoted into NSW’s open side, which claimed silver a week earlier.

“We were strong and NSW had won it last year so I think we were expecting to do really well as a side to be honest,” Barrett said.

“For the older girls doing so well wasn’t a huge surprise, I mean it was really exciting for all of us, but for the younger girls who hadn’t done it before, we were just over the moon.

“I was pleased with the way I played. Normally in indoor hockey I play up the back, and for Orange I’d take the short corners and that type of thing, but this time I was in the middle ... so it was really exciting when I scored a couple of goals.“

NSW dominated the competition from the outset, thrashing Victoria (6-2), ACT (6-1) and Queensland (4-1) - Barrett scored in all three games - in the preliminary stages, along with a tough 2-nil win over Western Australia.

From there, the sky blues beat Victoria (4-2) in the semi-finals before thumping ACT in the decider.

Barrett said, considering she’s still only 17, she’ll be looking to retain her place in the under 21 side next year, and hopefully go back-to-back.

“When we were leaving, me and Emma Corcoran, from Dubbo, we were sort of like, ‘pick us next year please’ to our coach, I’m not sure he heard us though,” Barrett laughed.

Barrett is also in the final stages of selection trials for the NSW field hockey under 21 side, although she admits her goal is to be selected in the under 18 squad.

Barrett and Divall weren’t the only two Orange products on show at the national championships, with Orange Wanderers gun Hayden Dillon lining up in NSW’s under 18 squad, winning a silver medal.

Dillon scored two goals through the group stages, helping his NSW side qualify for the gold medal match, which for all-but-10 minutes they looked certain to win.

Thanks to a quaddie of goals from skipper Jack Donovan, NSW led 5-3 with just five minutes remaining, before Western Australia netted two in the dying stages, before claiming a 3-2 win in the resulting shoot-out.

“It was really disappointing, it was really one that got away,” Dillon said of losing in a shoot-out.

“But we weren’t really sure how we’d go because we’d only had two training sessions going into it, so we were still happy with a silver medal.”