Victorian under-18 blog: Charlotte Killeen

After being selected in the Under-18 Victorian women’s cricket team, we found out that not only would we be traveling in January together for the tournament, we would also go on a camp to Lake Dewar Lodge near Ballarat for some quality bonding time.

The aim was to use the couple of days to go over team tactics and for our friendships to grow, as Victoria puts a large emphasise of being a close-knit team.

We started off on Monday with a talk on resilience and the importance of ‘bouncing back’ from negative thoughts or experiences.

We were taught ways to combat these problems so we can perform to the best of our ability on the field.

Following this we underwent the ‘Yo Yo fitness test’, whereby we encouraged each other to push ourselves to our limits, and were also told future fitness expectations, to ensure we are always 100% ready to go on game day.

With cricket talk and pumping tunes to pass the time on the bus, and despite getting lost, we went to the grounds we will play on in the National Championships to check out the pitches to make the most of our home town advantage.

Next we headed to the camp where we jumped straight into the water and tried out paddle-boarding; a core strength sport that was both fun and challenging.

With racing, and some sabotaging of others on their boards, the team got along fantastically well and was a great way to cool down and enjoy the day.

 In the night, we got together as a group to talk through tactics and game plans that we will utilise in January.

We also talked about the way we will go about the week to maximize organisation so we can be as ready as possible on game days.

A long day for the girls but an important and fun one for our team!

Staged from January 16 to 22, 2013, the Under-18 National Championships will be held Ballarat with Victoria hoping to exceed its runners-up placing from last season.

Image sourced from the Melbourne Weekly.