SOCCER/CRICKET: Pursue sport or a career? That's one dilemma this 18-year-old is facing

HAMISH BIDWELL
When you're 18 life can seem like one dilemma after another.
Which party to go to? Have I got enough drinking money? Will the boy or girl of my dreams be there and do they really like me?
Doing, saying or wearing the wrong thing can prove socially debilitating at that age and the consequences can haunt you for months.
So, imagine what it's like to be Kelly Tunnicliffe and to have some legitimately important decisions to make.
Such as whether to forego career plans in favour of chasing sporting dreams? But then, which sport to choose? Will pursuing one scupper your dreams of being an international in the other?
The next couple of weeks loom as being pivotal ones as the Napier Girls' High School leaver tries to come to a conclusion.
Today she leaves for Wanganui with the Central Districts Hinds women's cricket team for their last two round-robin matches in the State League against the Wellington Blaze, before heading to Auckland on Monday for a six-day trial for the New Zealand Under-20 soccer squad.
There's plenty at stake too, with the team off to the Oceania World Cup qualifying series in Samoa, in a quest to make August's Under-20 World Cup in Russia. No sooner will that camp be done and dusted than Tunnicliffe will be jetting off to Sydney with the New Zealand Secondary Schools' team for a four-match tour.
Throw in the fact that her tertiary education career is due to start next month and you can see the 18-year old has a bit to mull over.
"It's a pretty hard one, deciding what I'm going to do," Tunnicliffe said.
"There's 30 players going to the under-20 trials in Auckland and then they'll take a away a squad of 17 for matches against Australia in February and then the qualifiers in Samoa. Most of them are from the under-19 team that I was in, plus three from overseas and, realistically, if I don't make the under-20s, that'll pretty much be the end of soccer for me.
"I'll play club stuff but nothing more than that. I won't play Central Soccer in the national league.
"I'm meant to be going to U-Col in Palmerston to do radiology but that will depend. It's a hard course to get into, because it's not like they let everyone in and if I can't do it this year, I'm not sure that they'll let me go and do it next year.
"So it's pretty much a choice between the soccer or the career."
But what about the Hinds? Having made her debut in the January 4 game against Northern Districts, Tunnicliffe has quickly become an integral part of the team.
"Like I said, if I don't make the under-20s, I'm going to focus on cricket. But if I do, it's going to be a different story," she said.
"In the games I've played so far I started batting at nine and now I'm eight. If I made the Hinds next year there's probably a better chance for me to get up the order and show a bit of my stuff.
"The team's been playing really well lately, like it was really close between us and Auckland, and we probably should've come out on top in both games. The top-six haven't really been firing and so there were a lot of expectations on the lower order, which was quite nerve-wracking.
"You've got all the best players in New Zealand playing and the bowling is much tighter and the fielding is much better than I've been used to."
Tunnicliffe says the presence of New Zealand stars Sara McGlashan and Aimee Mason has helped her adjust. She describes them as "good role models" and hopes that one day she can join them in the White Ferns.
Football and studies permitting, of course.