Sunshine Girls level series with thrilling one goal win over England

KINGSTON, Jamaica – Jamaica kept alive their hopes of winning a first-ever Rhone Hornsby Trophy when they edged England 50-49 in a thriller to level the four-game series at 1-1 in Jamaica on Monday.

Buoyed by a vociferous crowd inside the National Indoor Sports Centre, the Sunshine Girls completed the wire-to-wire victory to set up a winner takes all decider on Tuesday.

Stand-in captain Shamera Sterling-Humphrey showed why she’s widely touted as the world’s best defender as she, along with Jody-Ann Ward, stifled the England Roses offence, while Romelda Aiken-George netted 30 of 34 attempts and Shanice Beckford scored 19 of her 23 shots to lead their team to victory.

Jamaica led 12-10 at the end of the first quarter and extended that lead to 26-23 at the half.

England, while upping the tempo in the third quarter, only ended up trading goal for goal and the home side maintained a 38-35 lead at the end of the third quarter.

The match seemed headed for a second tie in the series with the scores tied and less than 15 seconds left to play, but Beckford showed she has ice in her veins when she took the final shot to send the crowd into a frenzy.

According to Sterling-Humphrey, film sessions of previous games were key to their performance.

“I’m super happy because the fans brought us over the line and we’re grateful for that.

“I think defensively we won the game over England. We did our game plan and revisited the game we lost to England and came back strong,” Sterling-Humphrey said.

Meanwhile, England’s head coach Jess Thirlby pointed to early errors as the reason behind the loss.

“I think we made too many errors at the start of the game and everything that we expected from the Sunshine Girls came at us tonight,” Thirlby said.

CMC

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