Tall Ferns shake off slow start to book semi-final berth
Tall Ferns guard Emme Shearer’s career-best game helped New Zealand defeat South Sudan 82-74 to secure a semi-finals berth at the FIBA Pre-Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Mexico.
South Sudan took the early lead and were ahead 23-13 at the first break.
The second quarter saw the Tall Ferns start to chop into the South Sudanese lead.
Ella Brow continuing her good form from beyond the arc, knocked down a pair of triples in the quarter, whilst Charlotte Whittaker, added five points of her own.
The third quarter continued the trend, as Shearer started to heat up. Including her bucket two minutes into the quarter to tie things up, Shearer dropped nine points in the third stanza.
By the end of the quarter, South Sudan’s lead was cut to just two, and Shearer’s scoring outburst was just a pre-cursor of what was to come in the fourth.
Opening the quarter with another bucket, Shearer tied things up at 57-a-piece.
While South Sudan’s Adut Bulgak and Nyamer Diew continued to provide their squad was a slight buffer, Shearer would go on a scoring tear, single-handledly keeping the Tall Ferns in the game with 13 straight points, on her way to a total of 17 points in the quarter.
Two late triples from captain Tayla Dalton secured the Tall Ferns victory, and a spot in the semi-finals against either Canada or Mexico.
Shearer finished with 32 points.
“We had a bit of a slow start, but we stuck together and played the whole 40 minutes,” Shearer said.
“I think we knew once we got into the flow of things that we’d be able to outrun them.”
Despite Shearer’s big scoring night, she attributed the Tall Ferns’ win to a number of contributions across the board tonight, which included 16-year old Imani Rasmussen scoring her first Tall Ferns points.
“All 10 players did a really, really good job coming on the court and providing for us. I think the bigs did a huge job battling down low… and some huge plays at the end by Tayla, our captain, was huge.”
Coach Nat Hurst was pleased with those contributions across the floor in what was a physically demanding game.
“It was a tough, physical game. Momentum both ways for the 40 minutes. But we just kept saying if we stick to our process we felt like we could run over them in the end….we just knew we could keep chipping away and we’ll come out with the result we wanted.”
Dalton was buoyant after securing their spot in the next stage of the tournament.
“I think our whole pool play, there’s been four really even teams. Some tough match-ups, but I think the really exciting thing for us is that we’re trending upwards.”