20/08/2015
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World champions Canada fall to USA women in Toronto 2015 Parapan Am Final

Toronto (2015 Parapan American Games) - Friday night lights refers to the enormous popularity of and passion for high school football in the United States. The same could be said for the clamor around the women's wheelchair basketball final of the 2015 Parapan American Games that pitted the home favorite Canadians against long-time rivals, the United States.

In what was easily the most compelling game of the tournament, the two teams faced off in front of a packed arena on a nationally televised, prime-time Friday night game that was in question down to the final minute. 

When the dust settled, it was the American bench storming the players on the court after holding on for a 80-72 win that claimed the gold medal of the 2015 Parapan American Games and a place in the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.

The USA would take both gold medal games - the men won handily 62-39 leading from wire to wire on Saturday morning - reversing the trend of the preceding Pan Am Games where Canada topped the Americans twice, in the women's Final and the men's Semi-Final.

Argentina and Brazil met in both bronze medal matches with Argentina's men winning 72-47 and Brazil's women 49-19. In spite of their loss, the Argentine women will join the USA and Canada in Rio next year as the ladies had three slots for the taking while the men's side was relegated to just two this time. As the host country, both Brazil teams were already qualified for the Paralympic competition.

Ten countries will play in the women's Paralympic tournament with 12 in the men's bracket. For the first time, a women's team from the Africa Zone will qualify.

While the men's Final was a quick knockout, the women's Gold Medal Game was a heavyweight tilt, a slugfest with both Canada and the USA making big runs, generating nine lead changes and six through the game.

With four of their five tournament games against far lesser competition, coaches Stephanie Wheeler of the USA and Canada's Bill Johnson had spread the early quality minutes like holiday candy.

American Kimberly Champion would only play 57 minutes over four games yet score 59 points, fourth highest on the team. Canada's Arinn Young was her mirror image, scoring 48 points in 46 minutes over five games, also fourth highest. Young would play less than two minutes in the Final and Champion didn't go in at all.

When it was on the line, Wheeler's rotation dropped from 12 to 7 and Johnson's from 12 to essentially 7.5. That didn't indicate a lack of faith in their players but more so signified that now was the time that matchups and decisions had consequence.

Rose Hollermann drives on Cindy Ouellet and Janet McLachlan of Canada in the gold medal match of the Toronto 2015 Parapan American Games. Photo by Steve Goldberg/SCS Media

The American women, whose closest contest to this point had been a 48 point demolition of Brazil in the Semi-Final, led by six after one quarter but trailed by three at halftime. Taking the lead at 51-49 midway through the third, that deficit would become an eight-point lead with one quarter left. 

The reigning world champions were not going softly into the night, certainly not on the same Ryerson University court where they won last year's IWBF title. With Janet McLachlan hitting two three-pointers and 8 points in a 10-2 run, with an arena full of home fans loudly cheering them on, Canada drew within 4 with 1:06 to play at 70-74.

After the American's best shooter, Becca Murray, uncharacteristically missed two free throws, the door was open for Canada to cut the lead even further. But they couldn't. When Rose Hollermann calmly hit four straight free throws, pushing the margin to 8 with 45 seconds left, the game was effectively over.

McLachlan would leave everything on the court, playing all but 1:36, scoring 27 points and pulling 10 rebounds. Cindy Ouellet hit for 18 with 7 assists with Katie Harnock scoring 14.

The consummate professional, McLachlan described it matter-of-factly: "We played hard, and they played hard, and a few more of their buckets went in. That happens in basketball. That happens in every sport. And that's okay."

McLachlan's face and the expressions of her teammates during the medal ceremony would belie that claim. Even if they accepted it, they certainly didn't like it.

"Yes we would have preferred to come away with the win, but it was a good game."

The unexpected hero for the USA was the 19-year-old Hollermann who had averaged 7.8 points and 15.5 minutes per game to this point. On the biggest stage of this tournament, she played the entire game, scoring the first six USA points on the way to a tournament high 37 (22 in the second half) on 16 of 24 shooting from the field. She hit all five of her free throws, most importantly the four that stemmed the final Canadian surge, doubling a four-point margin (74-70) to eight in the last minute of the game.

Both teams saw the game as a learning opportunity.

Oullett outlined the challenge going forward: "This just tells us that we need to be better, and we need to not give up. It could have been a totally different ending. They are a really good team, and there are about seven teams on top of the world right now. On any given day any one of them can win."

Wheeler understood that sentiment, pointing back to the USA’s fourth place in the world championships and how that motivated the team. Going forward though, she said: "I think now the girls have had a little taste of success it’s just going to make us work even harder for next year in Rio."

In the Bronze Medal Game which had more promise than delivery, Lia Martins and Perla Assuncao led Brazil with 14 points each and 9 and 11 rebounds respectively. Fernanda Pallares scored 9 for Argentina and collected 24 rebounds.

Next up are the European Wheelchair Basketball Championships in Worcester, England from August 28 to September 6 which will add five men's and four women's teams to the Rio 2016 table. The selection events will complete with the IWBF Asia Oceania zone (three men's and one women's teams) in Chiba, Japan October 7-18 and Africa zone qualifier (one men's and one women's teams) in Algiers, Algeria from October 30-Novermber 8.

FIBA