Taylor Jones had 25 points in the 81-51 win over Costa Rica By. FIBA BASKETBALL
The Virgin Islands cruised past Costa Rica 81-51 in their second game of the 2021 Women’s Centrobasket Championship on Thursday night, led by a strong defensive effort to take a step towards this Summer's FIBA Americup.
After a close first quarter that ended 20-18 in favor of Costa Rica, the Virgin Islands dominated the second quarter — outscoring Costa Rica 26-9 and leading 44-29 at halftime.
Imani Tate hit a jump shot with 8:41 left in the first half to give the Virgin Islands a 22-21 lead, and the Virgin Islands never trailed or were tied with Costa Rica afterwards. The lead grew to seven with just over five minutes left in the second quarter. After Costa Rica hit a three-pointer to cut the deficit to four with 5:03 left, the Virgin Islands scored 13 straight points before Costa Rica scored the last two points of the first half.
During the last 5 minutes of the quarter, the Virgin Islands really stepped up on defense by creating two steals and blocking two shots to lock down Costa Rica and create opportunities in transition. Costa Rica was held scoreless for over four minutes before scoring with less than a minute left in the half.
In the second half the Virgin Islands kept their distance on the scoreboard over Costa Rica and were up by double-digits the entire half. In the third quarter, the defense put down another dominant performance and only gave up six points.
Taylor Jones led the team in scoring with 25 points while Ms. Tate, Anisha George and Brittney Matthew also finished with double digit scoring totals with 15, 12 and 11 respectively. Ms. George had 12 rebounds to Ms. Tate's 11 rebounds for both of their second double-doubles of the tournament.
The Virgin Islands out-rebounded Costa Rica 70-34, forced 13 steals and blocked 5 shots. This effort on the defensive end led to Costa Rica shooting 28.17 percent from the field in the game.
The Virgin Islands have two more games left in the Centrobasket Championship. The team will face the Dominican Republic at 6:00 p.m Friday and El Salvador on Sunday at 9:00 p.m. on the FIBA Youtube Channel.
The top four teams at the end of "Round Robin" will advance to this summer's FIBA AmeriCup in June.
