Oro for the US U-19 team

U19 Women Sprint To 69-46 Victory Over Spain, Earn 2011 FIBA U19 World Championship

Everything came together at the right time for the 2011 USA Basketball Women’s U19 World Championship Team (7-1) and it wasted no time in jumping out to a 25-15 lead and rolling to a 69-46 victory over Spain (5-3) to earn the 2011 FIBA U19 World Championship gold medal on Sunday night in Puerto Montt, Chile.

The U.S., which also defeated Spain in the 2009 U19 gold medal game and has won four consecutive U19 golds, received 15 points apiece from Stefanie Dolson (Connecticut / Port Jervis, N.Y.), Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis (Mater Dei H.S. / Anaheim, Calif.) and Elizabeth Williams (Princess Anne H.S. / Virginia Beach, Va.), while Ariel Massengale (Bolingbrook H.S. / Bolingbrook, Ill.) scored 10 points and passed out seven assists.

The FIBA game story is here and post-game comments here.

Jennifer Rizzotti (University of Hartford), USA head coach Opening statement:
I’m very excited to be standing up here as the gold medal winner. I don’t think I realized it until I arrived here and saw our competition, how difficult this tournament would be to win. Our play early in the tournament was inconsistent and we had to rely so much on individual talent. We didn’t play as a team. But, I’m very happy to see that after these three weeks, our team was able to come together and play its best basketball in the final two games. I feel like we learned a lot from all of the teams here, especially a team like Spain, who out of everybody here plays the best team basketball at both ends of the court. We learned a lot from Brazil, who plays with more passion than any other team here. We just need to put all of that together, the team basketball that Spain plays and the passion like Brazil plays and I thought that our team was able to do that tonight. That’s why we won the gold medal.

On the team’s improvement from Orlando through today:
I feel like the players, even the team we started the tournament with and the team we finished with today is so different. They really learned to play together and play unselfishly, gel on defense and they became very coachable. I feel very fortunate to have a chance to work with these girls because they overcame the thought that they could win as individuals and found a way to win as a team.

Speaking of USA Basketball, some Senior team news: Brittney Griner, Courtney Vandersloot Added To 2011-12 USA Basketball Women’s National Team

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