Photo: Inaugural Berger Elite League Champions – Kingston Hummingbirds
A polished final quarter in last game of the best-of-three finals in the inaugural Berger Elite League (BEL), by former national player Elaine Davis led the Kingston Hummingbirds to a come from behind 2-1 series win over St. Catherine Racers last night at the Leila Robinson netball courts in Kingston Jamaica.
St. Catherine Racers had dominated the Hummingbirds in game one and promised to do the same in game two before long distance shooting expert Thristina Harwood intervened to help her team blow out game two and set up a series deciding game 3.
Game three was nowhere like the first two games and proved to be a nail biter for the first three quarters.
The Hummingbirds started the brighter team and built up a three point lead that they maintained for most of the first quarter, only to be pegged back late by the Racers who closed the gap to one point at the first break. Harwood had 7 points in the quarter while Davis had 4 to account for the 11 Hummingbirds points. Anna-Kay Griffiths had 6 and Sabrina Spence had 4 for the Racers as the score read 11-10 to the “Birds”.
The Racers bench must have been a bit worried when the Hummingbirds seemed as though they were going to blow open the game in the second quarter when they opened up a 5 point gap, but an increased defensive intensity from the Racers backline resulted in turnovers that Spence and Griffiths capitalized on to bring their team right back in the game. All four shooters in the game scored 6 points in the quarter as the half ended 23-22 to the Hummingbirds.
Neither team gave up much in the third quarter and the Racers actually enjoyed being in the lead for the first time in the game during the period. The scorers were almost equal in this quarter as well; Davis and Spence both hitting seven for their respective teams while Harwood grabbed six and Griffiths five.
With a two point lead at 36-34, going into the final quarter, the Hummingbirds held the advantage but only just. As the old cliché goes cometh the hour cometh the man, and in this case the woman. Up stepped Davis who used all her ring experience to out-hustle the defenders dropping in ten shots to help her team pull away. Harwood had three in support while Spence had eight for the Racers. Unfortunately for the losers, their other scorer, Griffiths went cold in the quarter, failing to register a single point.
In the end the Hummingbirds pulled off a comfortable 49-42 win to be crowned the inaugural BEL Netball champions.
Davis credited her team’s win to the work done off the court. “We knew very little about each other at the start of the tournament and that caused us to have a slow start. We had some bonding experiences away from the court and that allowed us to gel as a unit and it paid off in the finals.”
Losing coach, Chris Smart blamed the loss on the absence of his best defender and national representative Malysha Kelly. “The absence of Malysha tonight is what caused us to lose the game,” he said. “Based on how close the game was, if we had her in the game tonight I am certain we would have won.”
Smart went on to congratulate the Hummingbirds on being disciplined in their team performance which allowed them to win the tournament.
Berger also announced that they would renew their sponsorship of the “Elite League” stating that the competitiveness of the competition and standard of play had far exceeded their expectations as a company.
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