SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Canada's women's basketball team held on to beat Brazil 71-67 on Sunday, and improve to 2-0 at the AmeriCup, the team's first international tournament in more than a year.
Nirra Fields scored 17 points to top world No. 4-ranked Canada, while Kayla Alexander had 11 points and seven rebounds.
Clarissa Dos Santos had 25 points to lead 15th-ranked Brazil.
The Canadians had opened the tournament with a 101-41 rout of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Canada's first game together in 16 months.
Sunday, the two undefeated teams played to a 21-21 tie to end the first quarter. Canada started to pull away and took a 45-37 lead into the halftime break, but Brazil rallied to tie it up late in the third and led 59-58 with one quarter left.
The Brazilians trounced El Salvador and Colombia in their first two games.
Canada, which hadn't played together since clinching an Olympic berth in February of 2020 in Belgium, plays El Salvador on Monday and Colombia on Tuesday. The top two teams from each group advance to the semifinals. The final is Saturday.
The top four teams advance to World Cup qualifying tournaments, Feb. 6-14, 2021. The top three from each qualifier earn a berth in the World Cup, in Sydney, Australia, Sept. 22-Oct. 1, 2022.
The Canadians are without WNBA players Natalie Achonwa, Kia Nurse and Bridget Carleton who will join the team in Tokyo.
Following the AmeriCup, the Canadian women will return to Tampa, Fla., to continue Olympic preparations. The women normally call Edmonton their home base, but couldn't gather there due to COVID-19 protocols and quarantine rules, and so are training out of the Toronto Raptors temporary home in Tampa.
