(St. Catharines, ON) The United States and Australia will decide the winner of the first-ever Women’s U25 World Wheelchair Basketball Championship while Canada will clash with Great Britain in the bronze medal contest on July 21, 2011 at Brock University in St. Catharines, ON.
Canada will compete for the bronze medal following a 60-47 defeat at the hands of a deep Australian team in a fiery semi-final battle Wednesday.
“I’ve always thought it’s nice to win your last game. So we have the opportunity to do that tomorrow and I’m looking forward to that,” said Canada’s Abby Stubbert.
The Aussies were led by the hot-hand of Amber Merritt who dropped a game high 26 points and 11 rebounds. She went 11-for-22 from the field (50%) and hit 3-out-of-4 (75%) of her free-throws. Bridie Kean was the only other Australian to reach double digits with 16 points. Kean also paced the floor with 5 assists.
Canada countered with 14 points apiece in the game from their two top offensive weapons in the tournament to date in Cindy Ouellet and Stubbert. A wirey Ouellet demonstrated her resilience and determination despite struggling to get her shot working consistently for her. She added an impressive 20 rebounds to give her 67 on the tournament (good enough for second overall).
Some costly turnovers prevented the Canucks from mounting an effective comeback while Australia benefited from 25 points off the bench.
Canada held the lead at the end of the first quarter 12-7 but the offense went dry in the second frame were they got outscored 20-9. It wasn’t until the fourth quarter that they found their rhythm long enough to break apart the deficit. The Australian lead swelled to as much as 17 points in the fourth quarter when Canadian Head Coach Michael Broughton utilized a combination of quick substitutions and timely lineup changes to help spark his team.
Canada got the score as close as 54-46 with 1:08 left on the clock before a depleting clock forced them into foul trouble.
“We’ve always said that we play 55 minutes of basketball - not 40 minutes. We fight through the whistles and play right to the end and we are going to fight to the end no matter what the score is,” said Stubbert.
Canada’s record now rests at 4-1 through five games.
The gold medal game will be decided Thursday at 7:00 pm EDT while Canada will compete for bronze at 4:45 pm EDT.
The Australians earned a berth in the gold medal game against the United States, which won its semi-final match-up against Great Britain earlier in the day. The Americans defeated the Brits by a 63-48 score to earn a shot at the championship. Desiree Miller and Rebecca Freeman were the offensive catalysts for the United States, scoring 23 and 22 points, respectively. Helen Freeman countered for the British team with a game-high 26 points and 12 rebounds to pick up the double-double.
In earlier action on day 5, Germany (3-2) hit the court hard and defeated South Africa 52-30 in the first game of the consolation round. South Africa put up a good fight, playing its best game of the tournament. Germany’s Laura Furst earned a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds, helping her team set up for a fight for fifth place. South Africa (0-5) will play for seventh place.
In the second consolation game of the day, Japan (2-3) earned the opportunity to challenge Germany for fifth place in the overall standings following a 65-52 victory over Mexico (0-5). Japan’s Mari Amimoto set a junior women’s world championship record with 51 points in one game and seized top spot for the overall tournament scoring lead. Floralia Estrada scored a team-high 26 points for Mexico in the loss. Mexico will tip off against South Africa to decide seventh place at 11 a.m. on Thursday, followed by the battle for fifth between Germany and Japan at 1:15 p.m.
All of the games will be webcast live on the official event website. For more information, visit www.u25wwbc.com.
