MEXICO CITY — The USA Women’s U18 team beat Columbia 83-47 to advance to the finals of the FIBA U18 Americas and it wasn’t pretty despite the score.
Columbia is probably the most balanced in height and positions of all the South America teams here at the FIBA Americas U18 Women’s Championships being held at the Gimnasio Juan de la Barrera. They showed their grit in the first quarter playing the USA tough inside and out forcing 5 lead changes and being down 1 point after the first quarter.
(USA U18 Women’s Basketball Coach Jeff Walz discusses his team’s performance in the first quarter vs. Columbia.)
That changed in the second quarter once the USA started to hit 3-point shots, making 5 of 7 in the quarter to pull away to a 42-26 halftime lead as Rhyne Howard (Cleveland, TN/Kentucky) hit 3 of 4 and Ashley Joens (Iowa City, IA/Iowa State) nailed 2 of 3 from distance. The USA led 58-42 after the third period and extended to 36 points by the final U18 score. Jenna Brown (Smyrna, GA/Stanford) led the USA with 17 points, Howard 14 points, Joens 12 points, Olivia Nelson-Ododa (Winder, GA/Connecticut) 12 points and Maori Davenport (Troy, AL/Henderson HS) collected 11 rebounds. The depth of the USA roster was evident with 43 of 83 points off the bench.
(USA U18 Coach Jeff Walz talks about his team’s second quarter shooting and domination of the game against Columbia .)
GAME NOTES: Columbia was led 2019 Miami Country Day School guard Maria Alvarez (South Florida verbal) with 17 points. The inside was anchored by 6-5 post Yuliany Paz who gave all the USA players issues before getting into foul trouble.
OTHER SEMIFINAL: Canada vs. Argentina was a battle from start to finish as the Canadian held only a 36-31 lead at halftime. Canada led early in the 4th quarter by 12 points only to see Argentina tie the game at 66 with 3:46 to play. Keishana Washington’s layup at 2:38 broke the tie and pushed Canada into the finals. Argentina had five players (Lucia Operto, Candela Gentinetta, Brenda Fontana, Sofia Acevedo and Florencia Chagas) who played in the FIBA U17 World Championships in Minsk, Belarus less than 10 days ago. Chagas who was a star player for Argentina in Minsk was the same in Mexico City as she led with 26 points followed by Acevedo with 18 points and Fontana with 14 points. Canada was led by Christina Morra’s 15 points and 14 rebounds.
USA will play Canada again for the 12th edition of the FIBA Americas U18 championship at 9:30pm Eastern Time. The USA has won the last 8 gold medals going back to 2000 and facing Canada in four of them (2006, 2008, 2014 and 2016). This will be the 3rd consecutive finals between the two neighboring countries.
