By Kimone Thompson, Gleaner WriterINTEREMDIATE 'B' team Lascelles served an embarrassing 27-13 defeat to Group A rivals Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) 'B' in a preliminary match of the Business House Netball Association's Divisional League at the Leila Robinson courts on Thursday night.
With a line-up of Betty-Ann Blair (WA), Racquel Brown (GS), Felicia Hutchinson (GA), Nordia Greenland (C), Havoneata Green (WD), Denese Anderson (GD) and Kadian Finn (GK), Lascelles held off the bankers and mercilessly restricted them to single goals in the entire first half.
From the beginning of the match, it was clear who the winners would be with Lascelles scoring about 10 goals before BNS were able to secure one. This was due largely to BNS' weak defense, and not so much their opponents' superiority, which was compounded by the absence of Goal Shooter Kareece Lawrence, who turned up several minutes after the match had started. That handicap gave Lascelles an undaunting advantage from which they did not recoil. They made very good interceptions and profited from the ensuing turnovers.
At half-time, there was a wide margin in the scores which read 14-3 in favour of Lascelles but the second half proved more productive for BNS who managed to add 10 goals to their uneven total.
Coach of Lascelles, Bethune Morgan was glad to have won but was somewhat disappointed with the way his team performed.
"I think they played well except that they didn't really do as was told," he told The Gleaner.
He said also that the BNS team put up a fair fight but were hinderd by the fact theat they started with only six players.
BNS coach Winston Nevers was disappointed, to say the least, with the result.
"It was poor, very poor," the obviously distraught Nevers stated.
He told The Gleaner that the game was lost not necessarily because Lascelles was superior to BNS but because that team put the instructions from their coach into effect.
In the night's other games, Minott got by Air Jamaica 23-18, Carreras smoked Port Authority 23-16 and ISSA defeated Azan's 20-9.
In tomorrow's fixtures, a total of 15 games will be played in the preliminary round. At 3:00 p.m. Digicel faces Mainland; National Continental Company (NCC) squares off with Life of Jamaica (LoJ); Shell tussles Lascelles and Guardian Life meets Bank of Jamaica (BoJ).
At 4:00 p.m., United General Insurance (UGI) is to meet Lasco; National Commercial Bank (NCB) squares off with HEART; Wisynco and Jamaica Public Service (JPS) will tackle each other and Salada and Kraft Foods will vie for the win.
The teams that will meet in the day's 5:15 fixture are National Housing Trust vs NEM; Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) vs Jamaica National Building Society (JNBS); Department of Corrections vs Minott; and Jamaica Money Market Brokers (JMMB) vs Hardware & Lumber.
The final games of the evening will see Mr Lee's squaring off with Churches Credit Union; Grace Foods meeting Carreras and Pegasus matching skills with Air Jamaica.
