USA Women's U19 World Championship Team Prevails Over Spain 69-46, Advances To Gold Medal Game

Maya Moore (Collins Hill H.S. / Lawrenceville, Ga.) scored 15 of her game-high 24 points, including three 3-pointers, during the third quarter to help the USA Women�s U19 World Championship Team (8-0) stretch a comfortable eight point halftime lead into a 69-46 win over Spain (5-3) Saturday in Bratislava, Slovakia. The victory clinched the USA�s berth into Sunday�s gold medal contest against Sweden (6-2).

'Tonight was indicative of how we are capable of playing,' said USA U19 and DePaul University (Ill.) head coach Doug Bruno. 'These players are improving on defending individually and as a team, and that's huge for us because we feed off of our ability to guard and to rebound.

'Everybody was ready to play tonight, and Maya Moore came up big. She took their best player out of the game and then she took out their second-best player. She's doing all that defensively, and then she had her offense cooking as well.'

After outscoring Spain 20-14 in the first period and 12-10 in the second, the U.S. lead stood at eight, 32-24 at halftime.

The U.S. onslaught began when Monica Wright (Virginia / Woodbridge, Va.) sank a 3-pointer just 45 seconds in the third quarter to launch an11-4 run that included 3-pointers from both Moore and Jasmine Thomas (Oakton H.S. / Fairfax, Va.), and the USA held a 43-28 advantage with 5:28 remaining in the period. Moore went on to score 12 more points in the period, and the USA never looked back. The score was 55-39 headed into the final stanza, and the USA outscored Spain 14-7 in the fourth period to bring the final tally to 69-46.

'We really broke down film, came together and decided to play our best basketball against Spain tonight,' Moore said. 'We just really picked it up on defense and then converted that into our offense. We were hitting shots, and all around we had the most energy we've played with so far.

'Our assistant coach Cynthia Cooper has really helped me see that when my defensive game is high-energy and active that my offense just flows right out of it. I was just really focused on bringing both sides of my game, and my shot was just falling.'

In addition to Moore, who also grabbed six rebounds, Vicki Baugh (Sacramento H.S. / Sacramento, Calif.) added eight points and nine rebounds; Angie Bjorklund (University H.S. / Spokane, Wash.), Allyssa DeHaan (Michigan State / Grandville, Mich.) and Wright each contributed seven points; and Jasmine Thomas dished four assists to go with six rebounds.

Spain was hindered by ice-cold shooting from the field and the free throw line. They made just 18-of-61 shots from the floor for a dismal 29.5 percent and 9-of-26 from the charity stripe for just 34.6 percent.

Laura Nicholls contributed 11 points and six rebounds for the Spaniards, followed by 10 points from Tamara Abalde.

'It feels awesome to be headed to the gold medal game,' DeHaan said. 'Now we just have to take care of business and win it out tomorrow. We've been ready, we've been looking forward to this. We're just really excited.'