PUERTO AYSEN, Chile — The USA Basketball Women’s U16 National Team barely broke a sweat Monday.
Taking control of the game from the very start, the Americans earned an impressive 114-19 victory against El Salvador in the FIBA Americas U16 Championship on June 17 at Polideportivo Arena.
Led by 21 points from Londynn Jones (Santiago H.S./Riverside, Calif.), seven assists from Olivia Miles (Blair Academy/Phillipsburg, N.J.) and 13 rebounds apiece from Janiah Barker (Tampa Bay Tech H.S., Fla./Marietta, Ga.) and Lauren Betts (Grandview H.S./Centennial, Colo.), who added 12 points, the USA took advantage of its 5-inch average height advantage and outrebounded El Salvador 64-23.
“We just have a really unselfish team,” USA head coach Mark Campbell said. “I think Olivia took two shots tonight, and every time she had the ball in her hands our team is better. So, if people are content doing the things they do great and not trying to get outside of that, then you are talking about team basketball.
“I think in the second half we had 14 assists to 17 baskets made, and that’s what we talked about at halftime, and I think we only had five turnovers. We handled the second half well by slowing things down and being able to set up our offense in the half court and show some discipline. I thought they did a really good job of that.”
The USA also tallied 70 of its points in the paint, dished out 23 assists and forced 30 turnovers, which it converted to 41 points.
“Just from the start, we played super strong,” Betts said. “We did a good job of playing together as a team, not playing one-on-one and working together.”
The USA’s first game was expected to be on June 16 against Mexico, but that matchup was rescheduled for 6 p.m. EDT on Wednesday due to travel issues for Mexico.
Rounding out the double-digit scorers against El Salvador were Sonia Citron (The Ursuline School/Scarsdale, N.Y.) with 17 points and five steals, Payton Verhulst (Bishop Meige H.S./De Soto, Kan.) with 15 points and Kiki Rice (Sidwell Friends School, D.C./Bethesda, Md.) with 14 points.
“We played really well, especially from the start,” Miles said. “That is something that we are working on, really having that energy from the first play on and that leading into the rest of the game. We really just came out well, and that translated to the rest of the game.”
Owning a 34-5 lead at the end of the first period, the USA outscored El Salvador 23-4 in the second, 33-9 in the third and 24-1 in the fourth.
