China beat Canada in Four Nation Women’s Basketball Tournament

　　Friday, 17 August 2007

　　JINCHENG, China – The Chinese women’s basketball team took revenge against their old rival the Canadian team. China lost to Canada in 2006 FIBA World Championship, but tonight the Chinese women was the winner in a friendly contest between the two teams.

　　Chen Lixin scored the first basket of the game and Miao Lijie followed with a 3-point play as she broke through the Canadian defense and drew a foul. China led most of the way in the first half thanks to the inside and outside attacks by Miao and Chen Nan who made the home team leading 38 to 27 at half time with two free throws.

　　The Chinese players successfully executed Coach Maher’s instruction to protect the board and won the rebound battles. Liu Dan, Miao Lijie, and Chen Lixin kept breaking the Canadian defense and scored under the basket a number of times. Canada had to resort to fouls trying to stop China’s attacks. China’s Song Xiaoyun was thrown to the ground in one of her drive to the basket. When she got back up on her feet and made the two free throws, she earned a round of applause from the stadium crowd which was happy to see Team China won the first battle over its old rival Team Canada in the first day of the tournament. The final score is China 76, Canada 58.