Canada Basketball – BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (June 14, 2019) –  Canada’s Senior Women’s National Team fell to China 69-60 on Friday afternoon in the opener of a five-game exhibition series. 

Click here for the box score.

In the first game of the exhibition, Kayla Alexander led all players with a game-high of 17 points and eight rebounds. Miranda Ayim scored 13 points, while Jamie Scott scored 12 points.

The Canadians started the game off strong with a 6-0 run thanks to Alexander. The team remained in the lead for the majority of the low scoring quarter, but in the last 41 seconds, China jumped ahead 14-13 causing Canada to fall behind in the first quarter 16-13.

China outscored Canada 23-10 in the second quarter making it difficult for the team to catch up. Although they trailed 39-23 entering the half, Alexander led all scorers with 14 points.

Beginning to pick up the pace in the third quarter, Canada outscored China 17-10 bringing the deficit to as low as six points. Unfortunately, China remained consistent and ended the third quarter up by nine.

In a last attempt to win the game, Canada scored 20 points in the fourth quarter, the same amount as China. Though their efforts were not enough as Canada fell nine points short in the 69-60 loss.

Click here for the roster.

QUOTE

“It was fun to finally go out and compete together as a team for the first time after a couple of weeks of training together. I think it’s safe to say we’re all really grateful for this opportunity to represent Canada here internationally. We have a few young girls who played their first game at the senior level tonight! China is a great team and they challenged us and showed us areas we need to continue to work on. Overall, although we didn’t get the results we wanted, I’m excited about our team and the weapons we have! Looking forward to us playing, growing and improving together as a unit against such great competition throughout this tournament.” – Kayla Alexander 

UP NEXT

Canada will now face hosts Belgium this Saturday, June 15 at 1:00 pm ET in the next game of their five-game European exhibition tour.

These exhibition games will help Team Canada prepare for a busy summer that will see the team participate in the FIBA Women’s AmeriCup 2019 and Lima 2019 Pan-Am Games, as well as the FIBA Women’s Pre-Qualifying Tournaments in Americas this fall.   

To stay updated on the Senior Women’s National Team, follow Canada Basketball on Twitter.

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For more information, contact:
Matt Walker, mwalker@basketball.ca