Canada’s student women’s team could not hang on as Team Hungary rallied to a 60-55 victory at the FISU Summer Universiade. The team finishes in eighth-place of the 16 teams participating in the tournament.

Canada started the game shooting the ball well. A Miah-Marie Langlois three-pointer gave Team Canada an 11-point cushion, but Hungary would respond and close the gap to 17-10 at the end of the game’s first 10 minutes. A back-and-forth second saw Canada outscored by three points, but the team still entered halftime holding a 33-29 advantage.

The Hungarian side came out of the break with a strong defensive effort and the Canadian side could not break through. Canada was held to eight points, while Team Hungary notched 15 in the third. A tight final frame saw several lead changes and several ties, but Canada’s 14 points in the quarter were a pair short of Hungary’s final tally.

Prince Albert, Sask. Product Dalyce Emmerson led the way for Canada with 16 points while collecting eight rebounds – one shy of Korissa Williams’s team-high of nine to go with 10 points. Miah-Marie Langlois was dangerous on the defensive end all night, finishing with a game-high seven steals to accompany her 13 points. The game’s statistics can be viewed here.

Head coach Fabian McKenzie reflected on the tournament and what he hopes his players will have learned from Kazan. "We came out and played hard, but then got out of rhythm. It's a disappointing end to the tournament. Overall I hope the athletes learned from this multi-sport experience where you have the chance to play against a variety of styles every day.”

Emmerson added, "We battled hard and played aggressively at times, but did not execute our game plan as well as we had in other games.  This has been a great experience overall for me.  It's disappointing, but we definitely learned where our game needs to grow as players in order to play at the next level.  We would have liked to do better, but we learned a lot from this opportunity."

As a final thought, McKenzie stressed the need to grow and continue to develop as elite athletes. “We hope they've gained tools that they can bring to their university teams and to their daily workouts so that when they have another national team opportunity, they can take their games and skills to the next level."

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