(São Paulo, Brazil) The Canadian women opened the Americas Cup with a dominating 85-39 victory over the hosts Brazil on Wednesday in São Paulo.

Team Canada opened the game on a 6-0 run, and despite the Brazilians pulling to within four points with four minutes remaining in the quarter, Canada held a 21-14 lead after the first. Paced by 32 points from Kady Dandeneau, the Canadians stretched their lead to 27 points at halftime. 

Dandeneau finished with a game-high 36 points and four rebounds in the win. Arinn Young added 25 points and seven rebounds off the bench, while Cindy Ouellet chipped in 14 points, 11 assists, and seven rebounds. 

“It was a lot of my teammates making moves to get me in scoring position. I got a lot of good steals. My teammates were really good at getting me mismatches, so it was definitely a team effort,” said Dandeneau. “We just wanted to come out real hard and show how Canada plays – really not giving Brazil a chance to get into the game. I think we did exactly that, so it was a really good team win.”

The Canadian women’s team meets Guatemala on Thursday at 10:30 a.m. ET. Full statistics from the women’s 85-39 victory can be found here. 

The men also opened Day 1 of the Americas Cup against Brazil, dropping a 66-52 decision to the hosts. 

Canada trailed by seven, 37-30, at halftime and remained close in the fourth quarter trailing by just five to open the final period; however, Brazil made a run and out-scored the Canadians 21-12 in the quarter. 

“They got a little bit of a streak again, and they started hitting a few shots, and then we missed a couple of real easy shots that we normally hit, and then we couldn’t stay with their streak,” said Bo Hedges. “Then they put a bit of a gap.”

Hedges finished with four points and five rebounds. Colin Higgins led all Canadian scorers with 23 points, five rebounds, and five assists. Nik Goncin added 10 points, eight rebounds, and three assists. 

“I think we did a lot of things that we had planned to do; defensively, we limited a couple of their main threats that we had talked about,” Hedges said. “Then offensively, we ran a lot of things that we’ve been practicing, but shots didn’t really fall for us today, and most of them were shots that we like to take, so we expect to hit those tomorrow, and I think we will. We also kept our turnovers down – those are the keys which give us a chance to win the game – today it just didn’t work out.”

Canada tips off against Argentina on Thursday at 4:30 p.m. ET. Full stats from the men’s game against Brazil can be found here. 

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Wheelchair Basketball Canada is the national sports governing body responsible for the organization of the sport in Canada. It is a non-profit, charitable organization that is committed to excellence in the development, support and promotion of wheelchair basketball programs and services for all Canadians from grassroots to high performance. Wheelchair basketball is a fast-paced, hard-hitting, competitive sport in which Canada is held in high esteem around the world for winning a combined six gold, one silver, and one bronze medal in the last seven Paralympic Games. For more information visit www.wheelchairbasketball.ca 

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