Latvia (July 14, 2018) - Team Canada's U17 Women took on Latvia in a U17 exhibition game and fell 62-47 on Saturday evening.

Leading all scorers for Team Canada was Donna Ntambue who totalled 8 points with 2 rebounds and 1 assist.

Canada matched Latvia's game early on, making shot for shot as they ended the first quarter tied 16-16.  During the second quarter Latvia were able to pull ahead as Canada struggled to match Latvia's offence, leading to them being outscored 18-7 and going into the second half trailing 34-23.  Latvia continued to push Canada in the third quarter expanding their lead to 53-34 at the end of the quarter.  Canada outscored Latvia in the fourth quarter but it wasn't enough to regain the lead with the final score being 62-47.

QUOTES

"We need to work on our defensive game.  We need to get more connected as a team, talking, verbals and also helping one another, having eachother's back.  Defence wins games so we just got to keep doing that and offence will come" - Aaliyah Edwards

"This was a disappointing effort tonight against a very organized Latvian team, and one that will require us to feel that and make some adjustments quickly.  We need to be much better keeping the ball in front of us and being able to play at full intensity for whole possessions.  Luckily, exhibition is about exposing weaknesses and growing, and we plan to do just that" - Head coach Jodi Gram

UP NEXT

The Canadian U17 Women's National Team will play two more exhibition games in Latvia before participating in the FIBA U17 Women's Basketball World Cup 2018.  Playing against China and then the USA over the course of the weekend, Canada will look to finalize their gameplan going into the World Cup and put themselves in the best position to win in Belarus.

For the latest updates on Team Canada and the U17 Women's National team, follow Canada Basketball on twitter.

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