Kingston Humming Birds have placed one hand on the Berger Elite Netball League title after drawing first blood with a 57-43 victory over St Ann Orchids in game one of the best-of-three finals at the University of Technology (UTech) auditorium on Thursday evening.

Led by goal shooter Thristina Harwood, who hit an impressive 38 goals from 48 attempts, the Humming Birds recovered well to secure a big 14-goal win.

Kera Christie with 17 goals from 19 attempts and goal-attack Sheneil Riley with two from three gave support to Harwood and an even stronger performance is anticipated in game two scheduled for January 26 at the same venue.

Sabrina Spence with 26 from 34 attempts stood out for the Orchids with support coming from Sunshine Girl Shanice Beckford with a perfect eight from eight and former captain Simone Forbes with nine from 13.

The Orchids started positively and rushed into a 12-10 first quarter lead, but unforced errors and a number of turnovers and miss shots would later prove their undoing for the remainder of the game.

With Harwood finding her range, the Humming Birds took over the lead early into the second quarter and quickly opened up an 11-goal deficit heading into the half-time break with the scores at 28-17.

The Orchids in an attempt the make a comeback in the third quarter, replaced ace shooter Spence with Forbes in goal shoot, but that move worked against them. The latter was for the first time in the competition ineffective in the circle and the goals dried up.

While they were busy searching for the right combination, the Humming Birds capitalised and increased their lead to 18 with the scores being 40-22 at the end of the quarter.

Spence was eventually brought back into the goal shoot position and the Orchids made a strong rally hitting 21 goals, but the writing was already on the walls, as Hardwood showed no mercy banging in 15 of the teams 17 goals in the final quarter.

Winning coach Marvette Anderson credited their all-round team effort for the victory.

“Well it was the best defensive team against the best attacking team; however, what won it for us today (Thursday) was that we played a team game at both ends of the court. The players were superb, Mellissa Wright came and played well and we are just here to play netball and entertain and I am glad that we did that,” said Anderson.

“Thristina was excellent, she has been shooting well and she was also awesome. We just hope that she will take that form into the next game so we can finish things on Thursday. We can’t afford to lose sight this is just one game, we need to win the next game before we can get the championship and that is what we are working at,” she added.

Her counterpart Janet Guy believes her team has the potential to level the playing field come game two.

“First of all I must congratulate Kingston Humming Birds for their win. I think they worked and played hard for the entire hour. I think we started off well, but I am not too sure what happened after,” Guy lamented.

She added: “Sometimes it is good when you lose, because the expectation might have been too overwhelming so a lesson had to be learnt before we get back. So we have to fix a lot of things that went wrong because we are sure we can do a lot better than this.

“We have it and we need to go out there and play, so I hope my players will go out and do that in game two.

Meanwhile, St Catherine Racers defeated St James Sharpes 42-41 in a highly entertaining third-place play-off.

Shedieky Hamilton-Barnes led the Racers with 23 goals from 31 attempts, backed by Anna-Kay Griffiths who had 16 from 20 and Nordia Hanson with three from six. Deneen Taylor hit 23 from 29 for the Sharpes with support coming from Jody Ffrench-Kentish who had 16 from 22, while Sash a Dixon had two from two.