B’ball: Chinese girls beat Japan,lift FIBA trophy

Beginning the match in their usual aggressive style,China took the lead in the earlier half of the contest only to see the Japanese girls punish them for every defensive frailty. The closeness of the encounter could be gauged from the fact that the half-time scores were 45-45. For the Chinese,it was their No. 10 jersey player Li Meng who scarred the Japanese defence as she notched up a total of 26 points in the game. She was ably supporter by the tourney’s most valuable player Dong Yu,who scored 22 points.

The third quarter saw the Japanese come within inches of snatching the lead as the score line read 70-71 in favour of the Chinese when the hooter sounded. Japanese captain Rina Hill played with skill as she carefully wove intricate shots in the Japanese game with an overall score of 28 points. Her personal best however wasn’t good enough to prevent her team from finishing second best.

Into the last four minutes of the match,China was leading Japan 89-78 and hoping to settle the match but when the Japanese girls got very close to pulling off the near impossible,the Chinese went back to their pressure defence tactic mode which worked out fine.

In other matches,Chinese Taipei pipped Korea 66-63 in the third place playoff while India through their own mistakes fell to Thailand and slipped to the sixth place in the tournament losing 64-49 to the Thai girls. Philippines beat Malaysia 65-54 in the seventh-eight position playoffs.

Results:China 99 (Li Meng 26,Dong Yu 22,Mengxin Sun 10,Xueya Ma 8) beat Japan 86 (Rina Hill 28,Ryoka Takeda 11,Moeko Nagaoka 13,Yuki Miyazawa 13,Naoko Chikahira 10).