Canada Basketball – MINSK, BELARUS (July 27, 2018) – Team Canada ended their fifth game of the FIBA U17 Women’s Basketball World Cup 2018 with a 71-51 victory over the Colombian national team in first day of class-play.

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Aerial Wilson led the way for the red and white in the win, scoring a team-high 12 points to go along with five rebounds and a pair of assists. Colombia was led by Maria Camila Alvarez Montes, who scored a game-high 20 points on the day.

Turnovers hindered the offence of both teams to begin the opening quarter, as the first quarter proved to be a back-and-forth affair with Colombia holding a slim 13-12 lead heading into the second.

However, Canada’s scoring caught fire in the second frame, as they knocked down shots from every area of the floor, crashed the boards, and came back to take a 37-25 lead heading into halftime.

Canada’s turnovers continued to feed the Colombian offence, but the long-range shooting of the red and white allowed them to extend their lead to 55-39 going into the fourth quarter. 

Colombia was relentless on the boards in the fourth quarter, but solid half-court offence from the red and white allowed Canada to walk away with the 71-51 victory.

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QUOTES

“We did better today than when we played Spain.  We played together today on court like a real family.  We have to continue like this for the next two games.  We have to finish strong this tournament” – Sarah Te-Biasu 

“It was great to see us get back to competing hard and playing together today.  As it often does when you commit to those two things, we earned a win over a scrappy Colombia team.  We look forward to carrying that momentum into our game against China tomorrow.” – Jodi Gram

UP NEXT

Canada will move on and continue class-play to determine final seeding tomorrow in the second-last day of the tournament. 

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