THE fan standing next to me summed it up.

“This,” he said, “was one crazy match!”

Concise, but he wasn’t lying.

It was indeed a spectacle befitting a championship decider. That’s exactly what you get when two of central Jamaica’s best schoolgirl teams collide in the final of the ISSA/Digicel Rural Area Junior League netball competition: Knox College — an emerging force over the last two seasons and Denbigh High — the perennial contenders.

Though the final score — 19-16 — tells the story of a dull, low-scoring contest, it was anything but a drab affair. In fact, it was the sort of battle that kept supporters on their feet for the entire game, with both teams trading dominance at intervals.

It was Denbigh, looking to avenge a second-round defeat to Knox which consigned them to second in Group Three, who established the early advantage (6-4) at the quarter.

However, Knox — characterising power and aggression in their towering goal-shooter, Tashawna Gibbs — responded big time in the second (5-2) to hold a one point lead at the half. But, in yet another twist, Denbigh turned the game on its head 14-13 going into the final quarter.

By this time Knox were pretty much down for the count.

Their performance at this stage resembled a team that had simply forgotten how to play netball. “Oh my gosh. Dem nervous,” one of their supporters analysed. “A dem first final dis, enuh.” And there weren’t many who disagreed with her.

How else could they explain the below average performance of the usually reliable Gibbs, who for much of the game just couldn’t get it right under the rim, scoring only 13 of her 24 attempts?

The trio of Moya Manning (13 of 16), Nicole Lewis and Kelly Scott had no such problem, though. They combined well to lift Denbigh to a hard-fought victory. Unfortunately for them, they weren’t able to complete a perfect day – losing the Senior League final by the same number of points with which they won this game.