(Photo By Colin Reid)
Following this morning’s 58-45 win over Scotland in their fifth to eight place classification game at the INF Netball World Youth Cup in Botswana, Jamaica’s young Sunshine Girls returned to the team hotel for a well needed rest.
This to recuperate from a hectic schedule which has seen them played five days in a row. The win against Scotland today gives the Jamaican team one final chance to seal fifth position with a win over South Africa in their last game on Sunday.
This morning Scotland perhaps of the opinion that the Jamaicans got little time to recover between losing to England last night and playing this morning, jumped to an early lead at 7- 6. However, while the Scots were able to extend their defense to slow the Jamaicans at mid-court, excellent shooting from Simone Gordon saw them ending the quarter 17-11 in front.
In the second quarter Scotland sensing the game might be slipping, forced the Jamaican into serval turnovers and made several good conversions in return, but patience in passing and better concentration extended the lead to double digit at 27-17 at 4minutes:42seconds to play. The half eventually ended in 33-19 in favour of the Sunshine express.
In the third period Scotland closed the gap to 41-34, and by the fourth quarter when Abbey Gail Linton was substituted at Goal keep and a captain Kadie Ann Dehaney checked in with 5 minutes and 43 seconds to play, Jamaica was already in cruise control and later wrapped up the contest.
Simone Gordon top scored for the Sunshine team with 46 goals from 56 attempts, while player of the game Hasana Williams finished with 10 goals from 13 tries.
Meanwhile the four losing quarter finalist South Africa, Scotland, Uganda and Jamaica have cleared their first hurdle in the race for fifth place, with Jamaica getting a win over Scotland and South Africa shutting down Uganda.
With Jamaica and South Africa meeting sealed for Sunday, the 7th place race will now be between Uganda and Scotland on the same day.
The match against the South Africans will start at 5am Jamaica time, the same day when the winner of the Championship will be known.
Meanwhile, defending champions New Zealand will meet Australia in the grand final on Sunday after winning their respective semi-finals today. New Zealand booked a place in the final following a routine 79-28 win over Fiji in semi-final one, while Australia won the second semi-final after drubbing England 59-39.