Pearls Bounce Back To Upset Zimbabwe

The Fijian Pearls recorded its first win at the Netball World Cup in Cape Town, South Africa on Saturday night.

The Maria Lutua-captained side beat favourites Zimbabwe 52-48 in a torrid encounter with Pearls shooter Unaisi Rauluni being named the Player of the Match.

Both Zimbabwe and Pearls were hungry for their first wins of the tournament after suffering opening day losses at the hands of Australia and Tonga respectively.

Playing against each other for the first time at a Netball World Cup, it was a tightly contested opening quarter.

A run of five unanswered goals saw Zimbabwe pulling ahead at one point but the Fiji Pearls came back at them, making use of the short pass to eventually level matters at 11-11.

By the first break, Zimbabwe had just edged ahead by two goals.

The second quarter was once again a neck-to-neck affair, with Fiji levelling matters five minutes in and then taking a one-goal lead into the halftime break.

Fiji notched up another impressive scoring run towards the end of the third quarter to surge nine goals ahead at one point and didn’t look back from there.

The Pearls opened their gap to 10 goals at one point, and while the Zimbabwe Gems did rally in the final quarter, winning it 13-9, it was not enough to avoid the upset loss.

The Pearls were playing Australia last night when this edition went to press).

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Story by: Leone Cabenatabua  - leonec@fijisun.com.fj