RIO DE JANEIRO (Rio 2016 Olympic Games) - "We'll make a statue for Anna Cruz."

Those were the words of Alba Torrens after Cruz's late heroics on Tuesday afternoon gave Spain a 64-62 victory over Turkey to lift the team into the Semi-Finals of the Olympics for the first time.

"Everyone will talk about the last shots of Anna, but I think we need to talk about all the shots that she made in the last quarter. She just took the ball and brought us to victory." - Torrens

Spain's situation looked bleak when a Lara Sanders basket gave Turkey a 60-52 lead with 3:48 to play. But Cruz had 8 of her team's last 12 points, including a go-ahead jumper that made it 62-60.

Turkey looked as if they had forced overtime after trapping Torrens in the corner, which forced her to turn the ball over, and they pulled even when Sanders scored on the break with just over 4 seconds remaining. But Cruz was able to get up the court quickly enough to launch a game-winning jump shot from just inside the arc.

Torrens, who has played with Cruz since she made her Spain senior team bow at the EuroBasket Women in Latvia in 2009, said of the words during a timeout before the comeback: "I just remember two sentences on the bench.

"There is still time and let's believe. And we did. We believed in us. At the end of the game, everyone will talk about the last shots of Anna, but I think we need to talk about all the shots that she made in the last quarter. She just took the ball and brought us to victory."

Torrens also played at the Beijing Olympics in 2008

Torrens, playing at her second Olympics after making her debut in 2008 as a teenager, says the result is huge for Spanish basketball.

"It's the way that we won the game, but also what it means to win this game for Spain," she said. "It's historic for us.

"About Anna, she had been showing the high level that she has and today there are no words.

Cruncho - pronounced "Crew-choh" - is Cruz's nickname because it takes the first three letters of her last name. She has also proved to be the player that needs to have the ball in the crunch situations for Spain.

Last year at the EuroBasket Women against Montenegro in the Quarter-Finals, Cruz had a 3-point play with 11 seconds to go - the final points of the game - that gave Spain a 75-74 triumph and clinched a spot in the 2016 FIBA Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament (WOQT).

It was at the WOQT in Nantes in June where Spain clinched a spot in the Rio de Janeiro Games.

Not to be forgotten, Laura Nicholls had a hugely important game for Spain. The veteran had two baskets in their late run and finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds.

Spain's Felipe Reyes and Jose Calderon congratulate Nicholls

"It was a game that was very, very hard," Nicholls said. "Another thing, it was a game of the head. The team believed. It was the hardest, most difficult and most beautiful game in my career."

FIBA