by Stephen Dafoe
Legal resident, Arinn Young, and the Canadian Parapan Am Women’s Wheelchair Basketball Team, captured silver at the Toronto 2015 Games on Friday after dropping the gold-medal final 80-72 to the United States. The silver-medal finish earns Young’s team a berth into the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.
Friday’s defeat was the team’s only loss of the tournament. The team opened the games with a 78-18 win over Guatemala and followed it with a 80-39 victory over Mexico. Taking a break for a day, the women returned to the court last Tuesday to defeat Brazil 82-51 and took Argentina in Thursday’s semi-final 82-28.
Friday’s contest with the Americans proved to be a bit of a battle. A cold first quarter saw Canada trailing 22-14, but they had closed the margin to 38-35 by the break. The Americans ended the third quarter with an eight-point run to widen the gap to 58-50 in their favour. Canada remained eight points behind by game’s end, giving them silver.
During the games, Legal’s Arinn Young played just under 45 minutes and earned Team Canada 48 points.
