DEFENDING champions Scotiabank ‘A’ defeated arch-rival General Accident 43-27 in game one of their 2015 Business House Netball Association (BHNA)) Senior ‘A’ League best-of-three series finals last Thursday at the Leila Robinson Courts.

The victory was also a convincing one for the defending champions which also gave them a big advantage going in to game two on Saturday. It was also a second consecutive defeat for Open League champions General Accident who were beaten 38-55 in the preliminary round. Scotiabank’s only loss to General Accident was 34-33 in the Open League final.

Winning coach Winston Nevers said the victory was fantastic as the team outplayed their opponents.

“They played extremely well from start to finish, especially in the third and fourth quarters. We had a slight lapse in the early minutes of the third quarter where General Accident fought back nicely and closed our 10-goal lead to six goals before the players regained their momentum in the latter stages to pull away once again.”

The bankers’ coach said all the players played an important role in the team’s convincing win, but singled out a few players such as defenders Malysha Kelly and Kameika Sherwood, who were both brilliant in intercepting passes and picking off rebounds, and goal-shooter Marsha Murphy-Dawkins.

“We are looking to clinch the series in game two come next Saturday, and we will again be attacking them with our speed work and quick combinations. I know they will be coming to win game two, but there will be no game three as we are going out there to clinch the series 2-0,” said Nevers.

Meanwhile, losing player/coach Oberon Pitterson-Nattie said she did not expect to lose the game by such a wide margin.

“Firstly our shooting was off target and on several occasions we failed to get the ball to the shooters in the circle. Our play was not too sharp for most of the match apart from in the early stages of the third quarter when we narrowed our opponents’ 10-point lead to six goals,” Pitterson-Nattie said.

“We will have to go back to the drawing board and make some adjustments for game two as we would love to win to tie the series and push it into the deciding game three,” said Pitterson-Nattie.

Meanwhile, Scotiabank ‘A’ started out the match at a fast pace to lead 6-2 before General Accident rallied to close the first quarter 9-6 in favour of the defending champions. Scotiabank ‘A’ rushed to a 16-8 lead in the second quarter as they dominated their opponents to lead 22-12 at the half-time break.

General Accident scored five goals to their opponents’ one in the early exchanges of the third quarter, but still trailed 17-22 before the winners regained their rhythm to move into a 31-20 lead at the final break.

Goal-shooter Marsha Murphy-Dawkins scored 38 goals from 51 attempts for Scotiabank ‘A’, while for General Accident, goal-shooter Sabrina Spence scored 15 goals from 21 attempts and goal-attack Margaret Lawrence got eight goals from 11 attempts.