GUAM (FIBA U17 Women’s Oceania Championship 2017) – New Zealand fought off a first half run by Samoa to qualify for the Gold medal match. Samoa matched New Zealand’s size a physicality for most of the game but New Zealand proved too much finishing off 81-36 victors.

New Zealand will now face Australia in tomorrow’s gold medal match, only one team will take home the gold but both teams have now qualified for the FIBA U18 Women’s Asia Championship 2017.

Charlisse Leger-Walker is ready for her matchup against Australia.

“It’s really exciting to be able to play against Australia and show people what we can bring. We have been working towards this for almost a year.”

Going into the gold medal match, Leger-Walker says that some small adjustments will be made to help their gold medal chances.

“It’s little things like our effort on communicating on defense and pushing out hustle plays and tidying up on offense with passes. Just tweaking stuff really.”

With their victory against Samoa, New Zealand will now move onto the next step of qualification through Asia.

Leger-Walker is looking forward to the competition and is proud to be able to accomplish this for the New Zealand.

“It’s so exciting. New Zealand has never advanced past anything except Oceania for the women’s team. I think it’s a really great thing for us and for New Zealand.”

FIBA