AFTER receiving a major award from a prominent A-League Women club, Jacinta Knight is set to feature in a national-level competition.
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The 15-year-old MacKillop College student was apart of the Western Sydney Wanderers' Future Wander Women Program for term two and three, a 20-week program that sees young girls coached by highly-qualified coaches.
At the conclusion of the program, Knight was named the goalkeeper of the program, ahead of three others, at an awards ceremony at CommBank Stadium on Sunday, October 22.
"I trialled at the Western Sydney Wanderers Academy and I was up against 15 other goalkeepers and they do phases to selected four goal keepers to go into the program," she said.
"I did the program for 20 weeks and then at the end we had a presentation, where I was named goalkeeper of the academy.
"It's for the keeper who displayed the most resilience, dedication and hard work during the program."
But only a few days later, Knight was named in the NSW Country futsal team, that's set to compete at the National Futsal Championships on the Gold Coast early next year.
This year's schedule has been pretty hectic for Knight already, having to travel to Sydney to train up to twice a week with her club Bankstown City Lions, play on the weekend and train once a week with the Wanderers for the Future Wander Women Program.
She also trains once a week locally with Bathurst goal keeper coach Bryce Deaton.
"The travel can be quite tiring," Knight said.
"It can be hard to juggle school and soccer. But it's all worth it."
But in 2024, she'll ply her trade with Blacktown Spartans in 2024, making the move from Bankstown City Lions, who were relegated at the end of the most recent Football NSW Girls' Youth League One.
She'll link up with fellow Bathurst talent Poppy Channing, who represented NSW Country's under 16s team at the Football Australia National Youth Championships earlier this month.
But she'll also be following her coach Michael Herrera, who is also swapping Bankstown for Blacktown.
Knight dreams of playing for the Matildas, with goal keeper Lydia Williams her idol.
"She was the first ever goal keeper I watched play and ever since I've loved watching her," she said.
Knight started her football journey with Western NSW FC, playing under 10s and under 11s, before making the move to Sydney club SD Raiders.
She ultimately made the switch to Bankstown, before linking with Blacktown ahead of the 2024 season.
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