USA men captured the gold medal at Lima 2019 Parapan American Games yesterday with a stifling defense, as they defeated Canada, 76-43.
USA came out hot in the first five minutes of the first quarter. Co-Captains, Paye and Steve Serio contributed 11 of USA’s 18 points in the first quarter. Canada briefly closed the gap, capitalizing on a couple of sloppy turnovers from USA to finish the first quarter seven points down 18-11.
Patrick Anderson from Canada and Matthew Scott from USA compete in Men’s Wheelchair Basketball Gold Medal at the Lima 2019 Parapan American Game. Photo credit - Carlos Lezama / Lima 2019
USA’s continued to put on the defensive pressure, in the second quarter extending their lead out to 12 points.
The second half would prove to be much the same. After each team went back and forth for the first three and a half minutes, Anderson committed his fourth foul of the game. The USA outscored Canada 26-9 in the third quarter, effectively putting things out of reach for Canada, and cruised to the victory and the gold medal.
USA Head Coach Ron Lykins feels his team played smart against Pat Anderson. “We’ve seen Pat take over games in the past, and if Canada was going to have a strong performance, we wanted to make sure that somebody else beat us. I felt our guys played him with great intensity, but they also played very smart.”
Both Canada and the USA had already secured their tickets to next year’s Paralympic Games.
USA’s Joshua Turek led all players with 18 points, while teammates Matthew Scott and Michael Paye had 13 and 10 points respectively. On the Canadian side Nik Goncin and Patrick Anderson made 12 and 11 points, respectively
Watch the Gold medal game
https://youtu.be/r1rPkal7UUY
Photo credit: Carlos Lezama / Lima 2019. Text courtesy of Wheelchair Basketball Canada/NWBA
