DONGGUAN (China) – Fujitsu completed half of the FIBA Women’s Basketball League Asia (WBL Asia) 2025 Final picture following a 104-83 ouster of Ulaanbaatar, Saturday evening at the Dongguan Sports Center.<\/p>\n
The Red Wave were quick to seize control early although it wasn’t until the third canto where they’d finally lead comfortably on the way to reaching the Big Dance – and giving themselves a chance to vie for the gold.<\/p>\n
Whatever happens on Sunday would actually assure the reigning WJBL champions a better finish than a bronze from the 2024 inaugurals but none, of course, would be better than taking home the ultimate prize.<\/p>\n
The Japanese side will face either Dongguan New Century or Busan BNK Sum in the finale.<\/p>\n
“The Amazons were a really good team. We had a lot of problems [against them],” offered head coach Hikaru Kusaka as his charges actually lost to the Amazons, 16-20, in the second quarter. “But we did it.”<\/p>\n
Maho Hayashi led the way with 29 points, 15 of which she made in the fourth quarter to power the strong finish. She went 8-for-9 from beyond the arc and finished with a 10-of-12 clip from the floor.<\/p>\n
Yuki Miyazawa came through with 15 points, spiked by three triples, 6 rebounds, and 6 assists. Aki Fujimoto made 13 points, 5 rebounds, and 6 assists, while Saki Hayashi and Rui Machida chipped in 10 points apiece.<\/p>\n
Hayashi, Miyazawa, and Fujimoto were crucial in Fujitsu’s third-quarter breakaway, helping put together the 12-0 run that turned a narrow six-point lead to a 69-51 advantage with less than four minutes on the clock.<\/p>\n
And when their Mongolian counterparts cut the gap to 12 early in the final period, Aoi Yamada cut their momentum before Maho restored order by nailing back-to-back threes for the 91-71 lead with 6:42 remaining.<\/p>\n
“My role is to make shots,” said Maho, whose excellent shooting night seemingly rubbed off on the rest of the squad as they shot nearly 55-percent. “My teammates give me good passes, and I just take the shots.”<\/p>\n
Amari Robinson, on the other hand, led Ulaanbaatar with 28 points, 10 rebounds, and 5 assists. Kayleigh Truong had 24 points, 5 rebounds, and 7 assists, while Khulan Onolbaatar added 14 points and 7 rebounds.<\/p>\n
The Amazons will look to take home the bronze as they will face the losing team between Dongguan and BNK Sum in the Third-Place Game set on Sunday as well, just before the championship bout.<\/p>\n
FIBA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DONGGUAN (China) – Fujitsu completed half of the FIBA Women’s Basketball League Asia (WBL Asia) 2025 Final picture…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-172631","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}