CLARENDON PARK, Clarendon — Holmwood Technical beat Manchester High in a close semi-final encounter yesterday in Clarendon Park to remain on course for a fourth- successive hold on the ISSA rural area senior league netball title.

Led by Tracy-Ann Francis’s game-high 42 points, the Christiana-based girls rallied to turn back their parish rivals 44-42 and will now meet Titchfield High in Wednesday’s final.

Titchfield, the most impressive team on the day, upstaged Denbigh High 40-36 in an epic semi-final battle to seal their place in the championship game.

Despite that shock defeat, Denbigh could still end the season with a trophy after their junior team set up a date with Knox College in the Under-16 final.

Knox, who are hunting their first trophy, topped Manchester High 30-27 in yet another thrilling encounter at the Juici Patties Complex.

But as entertaining as that match-up was, the performance of the day came from Titchfield seniors who held their composure to eliminate the highly fancied Denbigh team.

Tonielle Lee and Shanalee Livingston were the dominant players for the Portland-based school, scoring 21 and 19 points, respectively, to keep their team in the driver’s seat from start to finish.

Titchfield opened the first quarter with a five-point gap and, despite a strong rally from Denbigh, they never looked back, posting quarterly scores of 9-8, 9-8, 10-8, 12-12.

In the feature match, senior champions Holmwood needed to dig deep to beat Manchester Hig, who led for the first two quarters (10-8, 29-18). And the giant goal-shooter Francis was the focal point of the their revival.

Towering above her marker, she gobbled up each long passes and only missed four of her 46 attempts in giving her team decisive third (12-9) and fourth-quarter (14-13) victories.

Earlier, junior champions Denbigh produced a sizzling second-quarter display to outclass Holmwood 40-29 in their semi-final.

The teams traded goals in the opening session of their contest, the former edging it 10-9, but limited their turnovers in the second stanza to pull away from their arch-rivals 23-15.

Holmwood were much improved in the third, 31-21, but, with the champions keeping pace, they gave themselves too much work to do heading into the final quarter.

Denbigh eventually cruised home 40-29 with Denay Thomas leading the way with 23 goals from 26 attempts. Goal attack Zandria Cohen assisted with 17 from 23.

Giovanni Powell was Holmwood’s top scorer, netting 19 of her 23 attempts, while Shadine Bartley scored a perfect 10.