Mission natives Kim Smith and Teresa Gabriele helped the Canadian women’s basketball team fend off Great Britain in front of a partisan crowd at the London Olympics on Monday.
Coming off a narrow loss to Russia in their Olympic opener, Team Canada found themselves trailing the underdog Brits by four points in the fourth quarter. But they rallied for a 73-65 victory, evening their record in group play at 1-1.
Canada finished the game on a 16-4 run, and celebrated the first Olympic win for the women’s program since Sept. 24, 2000 when they beat Brazil 61-60.
“I felt a lot of things weren’t going our way, it wasn’t pretty basketball, but we pulled out the win and that’s what’s important,” said Canadian guard Shona Thorburn, who scored a game-high 18 points.
Smith tied Courtnay Pilypaitis for the second-most points on the Canadian team with 11, while point guard Gabriele posted four points and seven assists.
Up next, Canada faces France on Wednesday (1 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, CTV).
