GB Women hold off Lebanon
The Great Britain Senior Women survived a furious Lebanon comeback to win 77-72 in their Group D clash of the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup Pre-Qualifiers in Kigali, Rwanda, on Wednesday.
Leading 63-45 thanks to a three from Holly Winterburn with 5:57 left, GB were seemingly easing to a routine win but a 21-9 run spreading the next four minutes made GB sweat and gave Lebanon hope of a miracle. Sam Ashby provided daylight, but Rebecca Akl made it 74-72 with 15 seconds left.
Ultimately, Savannah Wilkinson took the game-winning charge with seven seconds left to spare Great Britain’s blushes as they improved to 1-1. Lebanon dropped to 0-2.
“There are many positive things about today’s win; we recovered from our loss the other day,” GB Head Coach Anna Montanana said, celebrating her first win at the helm.
“This is a young team, and it’s very important that we recover and we learn.
“We had a lead of 18 points, and we turned it down, so there are things we need to improve overall though, we are happy, and hopefully, we can learn for tomorrow’s game [against Rwanda].”
Wilkinson led the way with 16 points, going 8/8 from the foul line. Sam Ashby added 15, and Winterburn was one rebound shy of a triple-double, settling for 14 points, 11 assists, and nine boards.
“Any win is super important,” Wilkinson said. “In a tournament, after a loss, you have to learn and turn things around really quickly.
“With such a young team, that may be delayed, but thankfully, we quickly turned things around in practice, got the looks we wanted, and we’re really happy on getting that win.”
It is now simple for GB, beat hosts Rwanda in their next match up on Thursday (7pm tip off) and advance to the semi-finals.
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