Maggie Dougherty of Upper Clutha Hockey has been selected for the Central Otago Under 15 Girls’ hockey team. She, along with 17 other girls, will attend a coaching session with Sporting Edge on Saturday afternoon in Cromwell. 

Her mother, Paula Shortall, said, “She’s really excited. She made the squad for the U15s last season and played some of the first games, but she didn’t make the tournament team. She’s been working really hard on her skills recently, so she’s really happy to be included in the team.”

Dougherty, who usually plays at half- or fullback, has three siblings who also play hockey, which tends to keep her parents quite busy. 

“She’s been playing hockey since she was seven, she was in the Central Otago Collier team in 2017, and she’s been playing in the Upper Clutha senior B for two years. She was named in the senior A team, but she decided not to play because they had lots of players and they said she might not get a lot of game time, so she decided to rather have a lot of game time [in the B team] and have a good go running with the ball,” Shortall said.

Coming from such a sporting family, Dougherty also plays netball in the summer.