NZ Women's teammates go head-to-head in National League Finals

Marist and North Harbour were set to give it all in the New Zealand National League Final.

Less than a week out of the FINA Intercontinental Tournament, 11 of 13 of the Senior Women took part in the final, with the other two players battling for bronze.

Emma Stoneman opened the scoring for the match with a goal from a deflection off North Harbour goalkeeper Brooke Millar, but Liana Dance responded in the next attack with a bar-down shot that rolled over the goal line. Chelsea Geary managed to find the back of the net for North Harbour to take the lead 2-1. Finals jitters were apparent as two time-outs and three exclusions led to no goals at the end of the first quarter. Sarah Johns scored early for Marist in the second quarter to level the score at 2-2, but North Harbour's Chelsea Geary slipped another past Marist's Katherine Curnow to edge out to 2-3. Geary made her tally three in third quarter when she scored at 6:18 to push Harbour's lead out to two for the first time. Her work was quickly squandered as Marist bounced back with two goals within 33 seconds from Sam Schubert and Ricci Ferigo. Schubert's goal was a quick one-two with Hannah Klein after an exclusion. Another three exclusions and two timeouts lead to nothing and the two sides were to stare down the barrel of a tough final eight minutes with the scores sitting 4-4 level. Ricci Ferigo won the swim-off for Marist, and Geary was excluded for North Harbour, allowing Sarah Johns to score her second and take the lead 5-4 with 6:26 left in the final. Nothing was working in attack for both sides, and two last minute timeouts allowed Marist to kill the time and with it take the 2015 New Zealand Water Polo National League title.

This is the tenth time that Marist has won the championship, and ends North Harbour's four-year winning streak.