Eng­land-based T&T goal-shoot­er Saman­tha Wal­lace-Joseph was the main con­trib­u­tor with 24 goals as two-time de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Lough­bor­ough Light­ning re­bound­ed from a loss to Not­ting­ham For­est with a dom­i­nant 79-58 win over Lon­don Mav­er­icks in Round 13 of the Eng­land Net­ball Su­per League on Fri­day.

Play­ing at the Sir David Wal­lace Are­na, against her for­mer club Mav­er­icks, the 31-year-old Wal­lace-Joseph was a key fac­tor in her team's com­fort­able win to car­ry her sea­son goals tal­ly to 258 from 354 at­tempts with El­la Clark and Berri Neil al­so im­press­ing with 14 and 13 goals re­spec­tive­ly while Emi­ly An­drew al­so had a team-high 24 goals for Mav­er­icks.

With the win, Wal­lace-Joseph and her team­mates, who were in con­trol through­out and opened a 23-12 lead at the end of the first quar­ter, moved to a 10-3 record and 32 points, two be­hind Lon­don Pulse, who de­feat­ed third-placed Man­ches­ter Thun­der (9-4) who stayed on 28 points.

The Mav­er­icks are next with an 8-5 record and 25 points in the fi­nal play-off spot.

The Lon­don Pulse pro­duced a de­ter­mined dis­play to move back to the top of the Net­ball Su­per League with a 58-48 win at Man­ches­ter Thun­der.

Pulse was 17-10 in front af­ter the first quar­ter, but the hosts re­duced the deficit to three points as the vis­i­tors led 27-24 at half-time.

How­ev­er, Pulse stepped up their game and were 44-37 up at the end of the third quar­ter be­fore go­ing on to se­cure vic­to­ry.

Olivia Tchine scored a game-high 27 goals for Pulse, while Elmere van der Berg scored 23 for the Thun­der, who re­main third with one round of fix­tures to go be­fore the play­offs.

Both Pulse and Light­ning are guar­an­teed a top-two fin­ish and will con­test the ma­jor se­mi-fi­nal in the play-offs, ex­ter­nal with the win­ner go­ing through to the fi­nal.

The los­er will face the win­ner of the mi­nor semi­fi­nal be­tween third and fourth - which will be be­tween Thun­der and Mav­er­icks - to de­ter­mine the oth­er fi­nal­ist.

Birm­ing­ham Pan­thers won 75-69 in the open­ing match of the round on Thurs­day and Sun­day, Geor­gia Rowe scored 43 goals to help bot­tom side Cardiff Drag­ons beat Leeds Rhi­nos 60-52 and move with­in a point of their op­po­nents in the ta­ble.

Wal­lace-Joseph, who made her NSL de­but back in 2016 with Hert­ford­shire Mav­er­icks be­fore mak­ing the switch to New South Wales in Aus­tralia a year lat­er and won three ti­tles, and her club­mates face sixth-placed Birm­ing­ham Pan­thers (4-9) in their fi­nal league match on Sat­ur­day.