U19 Female Championship win breaks Queensland's finals curse

Queensland's Female Under-19 team has broken the state's finals hoodoo and ended New South Wales Metro's stranglehold by taking out the U19 Female National Championships title for 2025.

A gritty win in the final played in Newcastle gave the state its fifth championship in the competition's history and their first since the 2021-22 season.

What will make the result sweeter is that their opponents – NSW Metro – had held the trophy ever since and Queensland fell just short of winning it back over the past two years, with this being the third straight final between the two sides.

The win also ends the state's streak of finals losses endured by its teams across women's competitions in recent seasons, with the trophy being a tangible corroboration for the quality of the talent being produced by their female pathways.

Queensland have lost the past two Women's National Cricket League (WNCL) finals, while the Brisbane Heat also finished as runners-up in the WBBL in 2023 and 2024.

Batting first in the U19 final on Monday, the side in maroon was bowled out for 148 in 45 overs, an innings carried solely by Grace Collins with her 79 off 110 balls, as NSW's Australian U19 World Cup representative Juliette Morton caused heavy damage with her four-for.

But the Queensland bowling attack pulled things back as they hunted in pack to roll NSW Metro for 121 all out, 25 runs short of their revised target of 146 under the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method.

A day earlier, Queensland had overcome a higher-placed Victoria Metro side – one of the two teams to have beaten them in the competition's initial rounds – in the semi-final.

Along with the championship trophy, the side also took the Spirit of Cricket Award home from the tournament that was played from December 15 to 22.

The NSW towns of Newcastle, Central Coast and Maitland played host the best young female talent from across the country as nine teams competed in a mixed-format tournament packed with both one-day and T20 games.

Each state side played six rounds of matches – four T20s and two one-dayers – before the semi-finals, final and position playoffs were held across the last two days.

At just 15 years of age, Tasmanian captain Mia Barwick was named the player of the tournament for her all-round performance and received the award named after Australian women's cricket pioneer, Betty Wilson.

Barwick accumulated 242 runs an impressive average of 48, while also taking four wickets with her pace bowling and contributing in the field with five catches. The prodigious allrounder had first turned heads when she was signed by Hobart Hurricanes for their T20 Spring Challenge squad in 2024 as a 13-year-old.

South Australia's Indira Panelli was the leading run-scorer for the tournament with 355, while Victoria Metro fast bowler Ira Aery topped the wickets tally with 14 scalps.

Barwick, Panelli and Aery were all named in the official Team of the Championships announced by Cricket Australia on Wednesday.

Team of the Championships:

Indira Panelli (SA)
Amber Smith (ACT)
Kate McTaggart (NSW Country)
Lucy Finn (NSW Metro)
Kamya Mishra (VIC Country)
Mia Barwick (TAS)
Hayley Zauch (NSW Metro)
Filippa SueSee (QLD)
Olivia Callaghan (NSW Metro)
Ava Drury (NSW Country)
Molly Lincoln (WA) 
Ira Aery (VIC Metro)

Quick Filippa SueSee, who had finished as the joint leading wicket-taker in Queensland's T20 Max competition earlier this season and has since been around the senior state and Brisbane Heat setups, was the sole representative of the champion side to earn selection in the best XI from the tournament.

NSW Metro, who had gone undefeated until the final, was the only side with multiple representatives with four of their players making the cut.

Cricket Australia's national development boss, Sonya Thompson, was all praise for the performances in the competition.

"The tournament has shown us how much incredible talent is coming through the cricket pathways, with so many strong individual and team performances across the eight days of competition in Newcastle," Thompson said in a CA statement.

"The Team of the Championships is full of outstanding talent, with players from all nine teams represented. This points to an exciting future with these players taking the next step towards elite cricket.

"On behalf of Cricket Australia, I'd like to congratulate Queensland on their fifth Under-19 Female Championships title. This was a very well deserved and a fitting finale to an excellent week of competition from all the teams."