MELBOURNE, Australia – Ace Jamaica goal shooter Jhaniele Fowler-Nembhard broke her own Super Netball League scoring record, and the West Coast Fever piled up the pressure on embattled New South Wales Swifts with 78-71 win on Sunday in Australia.
The 34-year-old captain of the Sunshine Girlz, as the Jamaican national team is known, scored 76 goals from 76 attempts, including a super shot that counts as two goals, in front of a record regular season home crowd 11 267 at the RAC Arena.
Fowler broke her own competition scoring record to single-handedly haul the Fever into second spot on the ladder, on 32 points, with an 8-2 record, with her massive tally highlighted by a blistering 23-goal second quarter.
It was a strong comeback for arguably the sport’s best goal shooter, who was held in relative check by her Sunshine Girlz teammate, Shamera Sterling-Humphrey, arguably the world’s best defender, when the Fever lost 00-00 last week against reigning champions, Adelaide Thunderbirds.
“The goal out there was to put on scoreboard pressure through me,” Fowler-Nembhard said. “I’m pretty happy that I did that. The Green Army always shows up.
“(For them) to turn up like this … is amazing, and it just goes to show how well we’re doing here overall in netball in the west.”
Fowler-Nembhard hit her first two shots, missed her third, then scored her next 73 without blemish, which included the super shot.
The Swifts, last year’s runners-up, had no answers for her, and they slumped to a fourth successive defeat in what has been a tough period for the club, still reeling after they parted ways with Samantha Joseph-Wallace.
The ace Trinidad & Tobago goal shooter did not suit up for the Swifts in their previous two matches before being shown the door this past Thursday, due to what the club described as “a matter which concerned her behaviour within the team environment”.
Elsewhere, another defensive master class from Sterling-Humphrey and fellow Jamaica defender Latanya Wilson enabled the Thunderbirds to crash the 400th national league celebration of Giants coach Julie Fitzgerald and condemn her side to a 57-42 defeat at Ken Rosewall Arena in Sydney.
Goalkeeper Sterling-Humphrey collected seven gains, five intercepts, six deflections and a rebound, and wing defence Wilson racked up seven gains, four intercepts, nine deflections, and two rebounds.
Long-standing Jamaica goal shooter Romelda Aiken-George scored 38 goals from 47 attempts and grabbed seven rebounds for the winners.
In another match, Shimona Jok, another Jamaican goal shooter, helped Melbourne Mavericks keep alive their hopes of of playing in the finals in their debut season with a 73-61 win against Queensland Firebirds on home soil at John Cain Arena.
Jok and fellow attacker Gabrielle Sinclair missed two shots all match, with the Jamaican ending with 47 from 49.
