(Toronto, Ont. August 20, 2014) – In their first game of the 36th annual Williams Jones International Cup, Canada’s Senior B Women’s National Team beat Chinese Taipei-B 70-63, in Taipei, Taiwan.

Karly Roser (Hamilton, Ont.) led Canada in scoring. She scored 12 points on 5-7 shooting, including two three-pointers. Emily Potter (Winnipeg, Ont.) scored 12 points and grabbed six rebounds.

Head coach Fabian McKenzie was satisfied with what he saw in the first game.

“Great first game for this young team. We got up early and faced a great deal of adversity with pressure and did some things that were uncharacteristic of our team. However we fought back once, fell down again and battled back again, which was very good sense of character of this team,” said McKenzie.

“We have to build on for the next four games, our defence has to be a lot better and we have to keep working on our offense.”

Canada led for the entire game, with the lead peaking at 18 points. The Senior B team scored 40 points in the paint and finished with a 50% shooting mark. Chinese Taipei B lost the rebounding battle, grabbing 17 compared to Canada’s 46.

“This was a great experience, I believe we came out with a great start after spending two weeks of being together in training camp. We let the pressure get to us during the game, which came from both the team and the crowd, as they were definitely present during the game,” said Sami Hill (Toronto, Ont.).

“But in the end we pulled it together and managed to get the win. We definitely learned from it, there’s a lot of good things we did but we still have to clean up the details.”

Canada’s next game will be against Japan on August 21, 2014 at 2:00 a.m. EST.

For full box score, follow this link: http://www.fibalivestats.com/matches/44745/12/47/10/32mG7DYVhAB/

For full team roster and schedule, follow this link: http://www.basketball.ca/senior-b-women-s-national-team-roster-announced-p156770

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