CAN/LTU – Canada hang in to collect bronze

HAMBURG (FIBA U17 World Championship) – Going home with a bronze medal hanging around your neck, or go home with empty handed – or rather with a fourth place at the FIBA U17 World Championship, that is what was at stake in the first of today's two medal games.

Both teams came in eager to collect some hardware for the ones left back home. Lithuania got the better start, qickly opening up an 11 point lead, thanks to some fine shooting performance from beyond the arc (5-of-10 in the first half).

Canada, who once again had to come along without forward Anthony Bennett, fired on 4-of-8 from deep and trailed 40-43 going into intermission.

Another three point shot from Kevin Pangos (13 points, 5 assists) gave Canada the 68-67 lead at the 6:16 mark of the fourth quarter.

Lithuania bounced back, but was outplayed by Olivier Hanlan's (15 points) three point-play (77-77, 29min).

At the 1:00 mark Mantas Mockevicius (16 points) drove hard to the cup, got fould and hit 1-of-2 from the line. Lihtuania collected the ofensive rebound, regathered, with Paulius Semaska hit a huge triple to make it 77-81.

But Hanlan was not done yet, raised on a trey of his own and initially closed the gap (80-81). Lithuania could not score the following possession and sent Hanlan to the line with 13.7 seconds left on the clock.

Canada's youngster hit both, pressuring the Europeans to score. Lithuania fell short on its last attempt, had to foul once more, as Dyshawn Pierre put the nail in the coffin (83-81), while the whole bench erupted as the final buzzer sounded only seconds later.

Quotes

Egidijus Zehevicius, Lithuania assistant coach: "First of all I want to congratulate my team, all of my players, they did a good job here. A fourth place position in the World Championship is very good. But now we are a little bit sad after loosing this game."

Simonas Kymantas, Lithuania number 14: "Congratulations Canada, it was a good match. At the end we did not manage to defend. They shot that three-pointer and I think that was the deciding shot. We were fouling them and they were just making free-throws and we did not quite manage to come back into the game.

Roy Rana, Canada head coach: "First of all, I can assure you that it was just as exciting from the bench as it was for all the fans. It was nerve wracking, the Lithuanians, they are a very good, tough, strong team. In many ways you wonder how we pulled that one out, but we found our way down the stretch. I thought we made good shots, we came out really aggressive in the fourth. This is a huge win for our country, this is a huge win for these kids. A lot of them gave up two summers, they worked extremely hard from day one. It's a special moment for Canadian basketball and I am hoping to see many of these players continue to represent our coutry for many years to come and hopefully they will continue with success. We are going to enjoy this moment."

Olivier Hanlan, Canada number 9: "It was a really tough game, they are a very good team. We struggled at the beginning but stuck to our game and we won the game. Everybody, even the bench played well."

FIBA / JB