FIBA Flashback: Carleton Leads Canadian Turnaround, Sinks Serbia
In the absence of both the men's and women's FIBA Under-17 World Cups, originally to be held this summer, we take a look back at some of Canada's most memorable moments from past editions of FIBAs premiere international youth tournaments.
From the knockout round of the Under-19 Women's championship in 2015, a future star of the Canadian senior team, as well as the WNBA and NCAA, would lead a big turnaround for her team in one of the biggest games of her young career.
Canada had emerged from what had been a miserable pool for them; after winning their first game against Mali, they then failed to mount a comeback win against France and were then outdone by Belgium.
Moving on, they would be facing off against Serbia to remain in the competition. This was not going to be an easy task, though: coming into this knockout game having beaten Brazil in overtime, Serbia had shown they were a dogged and determined team who did not give in lightly. The Canadians were going to have to dig deep to keep themselves in title contention.
The game tipped off at 1:30pm on July 22nd. A three from Jovana Nogic opened the scoring and another not long after put Serbia up 8-2. Canada kept coming up short early on and eventually fell behind by double digits midway through the first quarter.
Bridget Carleton finally broke the Canadians' cold streak, with Maurane Corbin and Jaelyne Kirkpatrick joining in on the act, but Serbia soon restored their double-digit lead. Canada then suffered two separate scoreless runs, both of them ended by Carleton, and they finished the first half with a 5-0 run, meaning they would return to the court trailing the Serbians by seven points.
The teams exchanged baskets at the start of the second half, with Carleton and Lauren Yearwood putting up the points for Canada, but lapses from them on both ends would see Nogic restore Serbia's double digit advantage.
Almost immediately, Carleton and Kirkpatrick combined to cut the gap down to three points with over a minute to go in the third. The Serbian response was to put up seven successive points, a streak broken by Corbin early in the fourth quarter.
Carleton followed Emma Piggin and Cheyenne Creighton scoring in the paint, a combined effort which tied the game halfway through the final period. After drawing a foul from Katarina Zec, Carleton then put Canada up for the first time with a free throw, she then hit four points in a row to increase the new Canadian lead.
Zec and Kristina Arsenic tried to narrow the gap as the game entered its final stretch, but Kirkpatrick put the win further out of reach with the final shot of open play. A last-second scramble for points proved fruitless on both ends, but Canada didn't mind. There was no coming back for Serbia and at the final buzzer, the Canadians celebrated an unlikely 58-52 victory.
Leading all with 24 points, as well as being the only person on her team to hit a three-point shot, Bridget Carleton showed early signs of the world class player she would go on to be. Kirkpatrick was the only other player in the game to score in double digits, with 10, while Yearwood finished with 16 total rebounds and a game-high pair of blocks.
Unfortunately, after reaching the quarter finals, Canada would go no further after a heavy 93-45 loss to the USA. After further losses to Belgium and China, they would finish the 2015 tournament in eighth place.
Check out the full game against Serbia here:
