There's a lot to come in the cricket career of Katie Letcher.
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As the first woman to represent Orange City Cricket Club in first grade, she's already written her name in the history books of Orange cricket and now has her sights on making impressions in the NSW setup.
Letcher can make those impressions right in front of important staff after she was selected in the NSW female under 19s country state squad.
The Yeoval-based cricketer has constantly been a part of the Cricket NSW pathways for a number of years and said there's an endless amount of positives that comes from being part of the squad.
"I enjoy getting to experience the professionalism of cricket, being a country kid (it's great to access) the awesome facilities and having them around is really quite exciting," she said.
"It's quite cool to see they invest their time and energy into helping develop you into a player ... they're always looking into helping you and seeing how you can get better.
"Being a part of the country squad you also get to meet people who live in different areas of NSW so this camp is a chance for me to touch base with them ... which is also really cool to see my friends."
After finding out about selection in May, Letcher explained the process involves getting in contact with specialist coaches and video analysis of techniques.
The wicket-keeper's first face-to-face consultation with the squad came during the June/July school holidays, experiencing the new facility at Cricket Central. This Cricket Central experience was an extremely professional environment with fitness testing, presentations on nutrition and sports & conditioning along with a short skills session.
"They really try and give us a taste of what being a professional cricketer is like," Letcher said.
"Cricket NSW invests a lot in juniors and pathways - it reaps rewards because I've learnt a lot from it and you look at the professional set ups now, the kids coming through and getting contracts from there are fitting seamlessly into professional camps.
"That's one of the things Cricket NSW does really well, their pathway and the idea being that once you leave the pathway, the jump between under age cricket and professional cricket isn't that big. That's what their aim is to minimise that gap."
After travelling from Yeoval to play most weekends with Orange City and then venturing on to play with Parramatta in the Sydney Premier League, Letcher will begin to call Sydney home in October.
Her move comes after enrolling in a Bachelor of Business and Sports Management at Western Sydney University. She will also start forging a career with Manly-Warringah Cricket Club in the Premier League.
"Orange City have been really good to me the last couple of years ... the guys there have been really supportive, I enjoyed my time at the club and am thankful for the opportunities I received," Letcher said.
"Manly are a really good club, very well organised and invest a lot into their players ... it was a really easy decision because of the way they set up their club."
And while the change from Yeoval to Sydney will be a huge adjustment, Letcher is more than prepared.
"It'll take some time, I know I'm in for a culture shock having lived most of my life in the country," she said.
"It'll be different, I'm bracing myself and hopefully it won't take long to adjust ... I'll always be missing the country.
"There's a lot of great opportunities in Sydney so I think I can put up with the traffic and crowds for more opportunities in Premier League Cricket and the NSW system - I'm looking forward to it."