Jamaica’s Sunshine Girls rallied from a first quarter deficit to beat Malawi 36-31 in the fifth place play-off as the Fast5 World Series came to an end at the Christchurch Arena in Christchurch, New Zealand Saturday night Jamaica time.

The win snapped a three-game losing skid for the team that had started the two-day event with back-to-back wins as they marginally improved on last year’s results where they lost all the games they played.

Australia retained their title after beating New Zealand 35-23 in the final while England beat South Africa 30-22 in the third place play-off.

Namibia who lost all their games led Jamaica 10-5 at the end of the first quarter but the Sunshine Girls rallied with a big second quarter to lead by one goal 16-15 at half-time and increased their advantage to 29-26 at the end of the third quarter.

Romelda Aiken-George led the Jamaican scoring with 22 goals from 21 attempts, Gezelle Allison scored 12 goals and Rhea Dixon scored two.

Joyce Mvula scored 29 goals for Malawi from her 25 attempts while Loreen Ngwira and Amina Msusa both got one goal each.

-Paul A Reid