T&T se­nior women’s net­ball stand­out, Saman­tha Wal­lace played a key role in help­ing the New South Wales Swifts to a nar­row 42-41 vic­to­ry over Queens­land Fire­birds in the fifth place play­off in the in­au­gur­al Team Girls Cup at the Queens­land State Net­ball Cen­tre, Bris­bane, Aus­tralia, yes­ter­day.

The win end­ed a de­cent out­ing for the Swifts who end­ed with two de­feats and two wins in their four match­es at the three-day event, af­ter they were edged out of the fi­nal on points per­cent­age dif­fer­ence by Gi­ants Net­ball and Colling­wood Mag­pies, af­ter all three clubs, end­ed with 2-1 records in Pool B round-robin play.

The 25-year-old To­co-born Wal­lace is in her third sea­son with the Swifts and will start the new cam­paign as the fifth best scor­er all-time in the league with 932 goals from 1044 at­tempts.

In the fi­nal, the Mag­pies came out of their pool match­es with two wins and a loss, tak­ing down the West Coast Fever, NSW Swifts and los­ing to GI­ANTS Net­ball to fin­ish on top of their pool lad­der.

The Grand Fi­nal was a fierce cross-town bat­tle which the Mag­pies on 39-33 over Mel­bourne Vix­ens.

The Vix­ens lead ear­ly with 13 first-half goals by the dead­ly ac­cu­rate Tegan Philip, but the re­lent­less Mag­pies pres­sure saw them fight their way back in­to the con­test to trail by just three at the half-time break.

The sec­ond-half saw the Mag­pies come fly­ing on to the court, outscor­ing the Vix­ens 23 to 13 on their way to a six-goal win.

New re­cruit Ge­va Men­tor suf­fo­cat­ed the Vix­ens shoot­ers while the un-guard­able Shi­mona Nel­son con­tin­ued her in­cred­i­ble tour­na­ment, pour­ing in 35 more goals and seal­ing the game for the Mag­pies.

For her out­stand­ing ef­forts Nel­son was named the Ac­cor Most Valu­able Play­er in the Grand Fi­nal, show­ing that she’ll be a force to be reck­oned with through­out the 2019 Sun­corp Su­per Net­ball sea­son.

While the Mel­bourne Vix­ens couldn’t get across the line in the Grand Fi­nal, they al­so had a great tour­na­ment, go­ing through their pool match­es un­de­feat­ed against the Queens­land Fire­birds, Ade­laide Thun­der­birds and Sun­shine Coast Light­ning to al­so fin­ish top of their pool.

In round­ing out the week­end, Sun­shine Coast Light­ning had a strong tour­na­ment, fin­ish­ing third over­all ahead of GI­ANTS Net­ball, claim­ing the vic­to­ry 46-44 in the bronze medal de­cider.