FIBA ASIA U16 Women: China lift title beating defending champs Japan

Chinese team celebrate their victory

A confident Chinese team lifted the title at the 3rd FIBA Asia U16 Championship for Women defeating defending champions Japan 62 – 50 in the final held at Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Japan started faster as they took the first quarter 17 – 9, but China took the second quarter 21 – 10. Going into the halftime break, China were leading by a three point margin with the score at 30 – 27.

After the break China came out strong and took the third quarter as well 17 – 12 to extend the lead to eight points going into the last quarter. Japan tried to come back in the game in the last quarter but China proved too strong for them as the defending champions lost the final quarter 11 – 15 to lose the title to their East Asian neighbors.

Dilana Dilishati and Wang Haimei netted 10 points each in China’s title hunt while Satsuki Shibuya top scored with 13 points and made 11 rebounds for Japan.

Both Japan and China along with bronze medalist Korea through their performances booked their tickets to the 2014 FIBA U17 World Championship for Women to be held at Bratislava, Slovak Republic from 10 – 20 July 2014.