Team Canada fell 63-48 to the U.S. in the women's wheelchair basketball quarterfinals at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.
Canada is now out of the medal hunt and will play either the Netherlands or Japan on Friday to determine fifth and sixth place.
The loss particularly stung because Monday’s game was a rematch of the Lima 2019 Parapan Am Games gold medal game where Canada defeated the Americans 67-64 to win gold. The Americans are the defending Paralympic champions and have won gold at three of the past four games.
“I mean, the errors came from everyone. There were errors everywhere in our play, and we just need to learn from it going forward,” said Arinn Young, who led Canadian scorers with 11 points, eight rebounds and six assists.
Cindy Ouellet added nine points and UNBC Timberwolves basketball legend Kady Dandeneau chipped in eight points and 13 rebounds in the loss.
Young is hopeful the team can regroup over the next couple of days and prepare for the classification round.
“We’re all pretty hurt right now, and we’re going to continue to hurt, so we’re just going to try to end this tournament on a positive note with a potential win,” she said.
The Canadians were 12 of 20 from the line and shot 34 per cent from the field while the Americans shot 43 per cent from the field.
Canada trailed 12-10 after one while shooting 23 per cent from the field. The Americans pushed its lead to 10 at the break. Young and Ouellet each had 10 first half points for Team Canada. The U.S. outscored Canada 12-9 in the third period and pushed its lead to 13.
“I didn’t see us ending up losing. But I think nerves might have played a part in the start, and then it was just easy things that we just didn’t read properly like boxing out.,” said Young. “We weren’t taking our time on our layups; we were rushing a lot of our shots. In the end, that’s pretty much what cost us.”
Canada managed to cut the Americans lead to seven on multiple occasions in the fourth but could get no closer.
