Leading 35-33 at the half, Canada’s wheelchair basketball players held off the defending champions Friday in the semifinals of the Paris Paralympic Games. The Dutch, however, finished strong, winning 72-61 at Arena Bercy.
A slow start to the game saw the Canadians trail 16-3 in the first quarter. As Rosalie Lalonde pointed out after the quarterfinal win over the Germans, one of her team’s strengths is their fighting spirit. They demonstrated this brilliantly by scoring 13 straight points to tie the game. Kady Dandeneau and Arinn Young had their sights set on it and led the comeback.
“We started very, very badly and we needed a big comeback. We know that we are resilient, that we can adapt, and we continued to fight,” Lalonde mentioned after the game. “The Dutch are very tall and very physical players. We made a few changes during the game to better defend this size.”
The score remained close until the end of the second quarter, where the Canadian players were ahead 35-33.
PHOTO KACPER PEMPEL, REUTERS
Canada’s Kady Dandeneau tries to grab the ball before Germany’s Anne Patzwald.
Long passes in offensive transition and shorter ones inside the key made up much of the Canadian play in the second half. Rosalie Lalonde stood out early in the third quarter, making a basket, grabbing an offensive rebound and feeding the ball to teammate Arinn Young, who made it 39-35.
The gold medallists from the Tokyo Games and the most recent world championships quickly came back to the charge. For the rest of the third quarter, neither team led by more than two points… until the last second. The Netherlands then recovered an offensive rebound and scored at the siren to extend their lead to 53-49.
With just over 5 minutes left to play, the Netherlands players were leading by 6 in the fourth quarter. Young scored two consecutive baskets and forced the opposing team to call a timeout. With her arms, the Albertan encouraged the crowd at the Arena Bercy to make more noise.
PHOTO KACPER PEMPEL, REUTERS
The Canadians will face the Chinese on Sunday in the bronze medal match.
One of her shots was blocked with a minute left and the Canadians called a foul on the sequence. The officials did not change their decision after the review. The Dutch, meanwhile, held on by making their free throws late in the game. They will have the opportunity to defend their Paralympic title on Sunday against the Americans.
“The whole game was a basket on each side. We made too many mistakes in the last quarter and they shot well to finish the game. It’s very disappointing, but the team that had the better game won,” summarized Rosalie Lalonde, who accumulated 6 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals.
Kady Dandeneau recorded a triple-double in the loss with 24 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists. Arinn Young finished the game with a total of 29 points, 8 rebounds and 8 assists.
Canada will play China for the bronze medal on Sunday. The two teams met in the opening round of the Paralympic tournament, with the Chinese winning 70-65.