Sapphires face Italy in FIBA World Cup quarter-finals
The undefeated Sapphires will face Italy on Friday for a place in the medal rounds at the under-17 FIBA Women’s World Cup in Belarus.
The two nations faced off in the gold medal game of the same event in early 2016 which the Sapphires won comfortably but take much different line-ups into this year’s event.
The Sapphires qualified for the clash with Italy after easily accounting for New Zealand 77-37 in their round of 16 clash on Wednesday night with point guard Shyla Heal scoring 15 of her team-high 20 points in the first half.
Guard Lily Scanlon was a strong contributor again with 16 points while coach Shannon Seebohm was able to play his full roster and have 11 of the 12 players score while also resting some of his starters in the second half.
Italy endured a much tougher contest as they played the host nation Belarus trailing at quarter time before pulling away after that to win 65-50.
Italian forward Marta Spinelli led her side with 15 points and nine rebounds while her side had five players score in double figures, meaning the Sapphires will face a very tough defensive assignment on Friday night.
Australia’s offence has seen Heal, daughter of Australian great Shane Heal, and Scanlon average double figures with other players stepping up in different games but defensively the Sapphires have been strong keeping teams under 50 points in all four of their games.
Centre Isobel Anstey, daughter of Australian basketball great Chris Anstey and elite swimmer Linley Frame, continues to lead the team in rebounding while Agnes Emma-Nnopu, Alexander Fowler, Isabel Palmer and the rest of the side have shared the minutes to maintain the team’s defensive intensity.
France, USA and Hungary are also undefeated heading into the quarter-finals.
The Sapphires and Italy will play their World Cup quarter-final on Friday at 11.30pm with the game live streamed for free on FIBA’s YouTube channel.
If the Sapphires make the semi-finals and final Fox Sports is likely to show both games.