.jpg)
Imani Tate competes with an El Salvador player for the ball. The USVI won against El Salvador to secure their spot in the Summer Americup By. FIBA BASKETALL
The Virgin Islands Women’s Basketball team will be playing in the 2021 AmeriCup after finishing second in the CentroBasket Championship following their win against El Salvador 80-68 Sunday night.
The Virgin Islands opened up a 16-9 lead in the first quarter with just 4:08 into the game. El Salvador overturned this deficit by outscoring the USVI 14-2 over a four and a half minute stretch to take a five-point lead with just over a minute left in the first quarter. Taylor Jones scored the last five points of the quarter for the Virgin Islands, which tied the game 23-23 going into the second quarter.
The Virgin Islands team was down 29-26 with just under seven minutes to go in the second quarter. However, during the next seven minutes of play the team allowed just four points while scoring 18 to build a 44-33 lead at the halftime interval.
El Salvador chipped away at the deficit throughout the third quarter and got within 5 points with 2:27 left. The Virgin Islands answered by scoring 8 of the quarter’s last 12 points to lead 64-55 heading into the fourth quarter.
El Salvador was unable to close the gap under 7 points in the fourth quarter.
Anisha George had her fourth double-double of the tournament and led the Virgin Islands in scoring with 22 points while hauling 14 rebounds. Imani Tate had 20 points and Ms. Jones had 11 points.
The USVI beat the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica during earlier games, with their only loss of the tournament coming against the winners of the Centrobasket Championship, Puerto Rico, with the team playing a perfect 4-0.
Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic were the 4 teams that advanced to the AmeriCup. They will be joined by teams from North and South America who have yet to play their qualifying tournaments.
In a press release earlier this month, FIBA confirmed that the FIBA Women’s AmeriCup 2021 games will be played in Puerto Rico from June 11-19. The teams will be placed in their groups for the tournament on May 17.
