London Pulse will go for a maiden Super League title on Sunday after setting up a Grand Final against 2021 champions Loughborough Lightning.
Pulse, who have never been in a final, beat Surrey Storm 55-42 at the Copper Box to secure their place.
Lightning ended Manchester Thunder’s title defence with a 65-59 victory in a repeat of last year’s final.
The two finalists finished the league first and second, respectively, in the regular season.
Storm will face Thunder in a play-off match for third and fourth place in a curtain-raiser to the final.
Against Storm, a tightly contested first half saw Pulse lead by just two goals but the London side rapidly established a seven-goal lead in the third quarter as Roses shooter Olivia Tchine scored 35 of her 37 attempts with Berri Neil adding a further 20 goals.
Pulse made an impressive 20 deflections in the first half as England defender Funmi Fadoju’s quality shone through but they struggled to convert them to goals until the third quarter, which Pulse won 17-9 in a dominant display before going on to secure the 13-goal win.
“Funmi [Fadoju] and Hali [Adio] in the circle were immense,” Pulse head coach Sam Bird told Sky Sports. “Funmi, as we all know, is just awesome. There was no way through, they just shut the door, they were a really good partnership.”
Storm, who had failed to beat Pulse in their two meetings in the regular season, came into the match off a two-week break but offered little in the way of answers to Pulse’s defensive mastery and attacking prowess.
The final, on Sunday at 16:15 BST at London’s Copper Box, will provide Pulse with the opportunity to exact revenge on Lightning, the side that beat them in the semi-final last year, and win a maiden title.
Pulse joined the league in 2019 and this was their best Super League campaign having finished top of the league and scored 58 more goals in the regular season than in 2022.
Bird, who won the league as an assistant coach with Saracens Mavericks in 2008, said reaching a first ever final with Pulse is an “amazing” achievement.
“I’m so happy for the club, players, staff. It was a brilliant atmosphere here and I’m just so proud,” she said.
Lightning looking to reclaim crown
Pulse lost just two games all season and beat Lightning, who are aiming to regain the crown they won two years ago, on both of their meetings.
The Loughborough side, who will play in their sixth Grand Final and third in a row, used the home crowd to their advantage in a feisty last-four encounter with defending champions Thunder.
The two sides had beat each other once in the regular season and finished on the same points, separated only by goal difference.
Thunder, in pursuit of a second consecutive title for the first time in their history, could not be separated from the home side in the first half but made costly errors to squander a three-goal lead in the third period, giving themselves too much to do in the final quarter.
Boosted by the presence of long-term absentee Beth Cobden, Lightning were effective in cutting out Thunder’s attempts to mount a comeback, intercepting balls and adapting to Thunder’s tactical tweaks, despite the four-time champions’ shooters scoring 100% of their 59 attempts.
“Unbelievably proud, I’m so pleased with them,” said Lightning head coach Vic Burgess. “We started really well. Thunder came back and gave us something to think about and we said at half-time we have to want it more.
“I’m just so proud of the players they all played so well – I’m really happy.”
When asked whether it was time to right some wrongs from last year’s final loss, Burgess said: “Absolutely.”