Canadian women golden; men capture bronze at Americas Cup
(São Paulo, Brazil) The Canadian women defeated the U.S. 76-68 to win the gold medal at the 2022 Americas Cup.
Team Canada was undefeated throughout the tournament, including 100-30 victory over Argentina on Sunday to qualify for the World Championships in November.
Cindy Ouellet paced Canada with 30 points and seven assists. Kady Dandeneau added 21 points and 13 rebounds, while Arinn Young chipped in with nine points in the win.
“This is what we came here to do, so it’s good,” said Dandeneau. “The U.S. gave us a run for our money; they always do. It was a good push, but we came in, did what we wanted to do, and now we’re setting our sights on Worlds.”
Canada was in control for much of the game leading 44-27 at the half and 58-47 heading into the fourth. At one point, the Canadians stretched their lead to 19.
As the team now prepares for the World Championships in Dubai, the Americas Cup was a good learning experience, said Dandeneau.
“It shows some of the things we need to work on, some of our weaknesses, some of our strengths, and what we can rely on, and it’s just building off of that,” Dandeneau said.
The Canadian women also won gold at the 2017 Americas cup in Colombia.
The Canadian men won bronze Monday morning, defeating the hosts’ Brazil 56-46.
Canada officially qualified for November’s World Championships with their 77-73 quarterfinals victory over Colombia on Saturday.
The men were led by Nik Goncin, who had a game-high 33 points and 14 rebounds in the win. Colin Higgins added 11 points, 12 rebounds, and six assists.
The Canadians led 26-25 at halftime but trailed by three heading into the fourth. Canada out-scored Brazil 20-7 in the final period to pull away for the victory.
“It’s a long trip back home; this is way nicer than losing the last game of the tournament, for sure,” said Goncin. “We had a couple of tournaments leading up to this where most of the time we were down going into the fourth quarter, so it was just a matter of connecting the dots, making sure we believed.”
The Canadians scored 15 points off Brazilian turnovers and finished shooting 24 of 66 from the field.
“It’s nice to obviously have the medal, but it’s great to finish on a positive note and have the win and play a solid defensive game,” said Bo Hedges. “I think that’s the biggest thing that we can take from this tournament: our defence has improved a lot, and we’re able to cut teams down and take away what they want to do and force them to beat us in different ways. I think today was a real testament to our defence and our offence was good enough to win.”
The men won a silver medal at the last Americas Cup tournament in 2017.
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