Oliver Lees
After an ascendant 2023 campaign that nearly ended in glory, Spring Hills will be looking to go one better this season in the Victorian Premier League women’s division.
Spring Hills fell just short of a VPL title in its first season at that level, losing 3-2 to the Essendon Royal after leading 2-0 with 20 minutes ago.
A flurry of three late goals in 15 minutes saw the Royals snatch victory from Spring Hills’ clutches.
It can be difficult to celebrate such a narrow and difficult defeat, but that’s not so in the case of Springs Hill, who surprised a lot of people to get so far with such a young team.
Spring Hills coach Tom Markovski said they’re looking to get even better this time around.
“The message last season was just to see how we go because we’d just gone from the VPL to the first division,” he said.
“We wanted to play our style and brand against the other teams and see how it goes, and it went really well.
“This year the message is to be better than last year, because everyone will be getting better.”
Spring Hills success last season was built up from a core of young players.
Two of the team’s top three finishers in the best and fairest were 16-years-old during the season.
Jacinta Tanarte-Crook and Indianna Tupaea both play at the centre back position.
Markovski said he was excited to see what Aleks Sinclair could do this season.
Sinclair took out the best and fairest despite joining the team after round four and has remained at the club for this season. She joined the club after a long history at Calder United and having been part of Western United’s first A-League women’s side.
“The commitment and level of experience she showed was phenomenal,” he said. “I think she’s brought that again this year and she’s going to encourage all our players, new and old.”
Spring Hills will play its first game of the season on Sunday against Ringwood City.
Both teams were promoted from division 1 in 2022, however Ringwood had a tougher run in their first year in the VPL.
They finished in sixth place with three wins and seven losses.
“We had some good games against them last year,” Makovski said. “I think it’ll be a tough game, there are no easy games at this level.”
Spring Hills have drawn a challenging fixture with four of its five being away games.
Leading the Spring Hills men’s side will be Sal Paglia.
The men’s side started its state league 5 west season with a win on Saturday.
