GUADALAJARA, Mexico (Aug. 17, 2026) \u2014 Canada\u2019s Senior Women\u2019s National Team opened the FIBA Olympic Pre-Qualifying Tournament with a convincing 72-57 victory over Senegal on Monday.<\/p>\n
Kayla Alexander scored a team-high 16 points on 7-of-10 shooting and added seven rebounds to lead Canada. Syla Swords and Delaney Gibb finished with 13 points apiece.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a good start for us. You always want to start with a win,” head coach Nell Fortner. \u201cI thought we played really tough and did a good job on the boards tonight. We know Senegal is a very, very good rebounding team and tough to keep off the boards, so it\u2019s nice to win that battle.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just nice to get that first win under our belt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Canada\u2019s work on the glass was particularly evident at the offensive end, where the Canadians held a 15-8 advantage. Tara Wallack collected four offensive rebounds on her own to help Canada generate additional possessions.<\/p>\n
Senegal scored the game\u2019s opening basket before Sami Hill answered with a three-pointer. Cierra Dillard responded from deep to give Senegal a 5-3 advantage, but it proved to be their final lead of the night.<\/p>\n
Swords helped Canada take control early, connecting on three three-pointers in the opening quarter. The Canadians led by as many as 17 points and remained in front throughout, but Senegal made its push midway through the third.<\/p>\n
A Sabou Gueye basket cut Canada\u2019s advantage to 48-47 and forced Fortner to call a timeout. Canada responded with its best stretch of the night, scoring 10 unanswered points to regain control.<\/p>\n
Gibb opened the run with a three-pointer, Agot Makeer scored underneath and Shaina Pellington completed a three-point play after finishing through contact.<\/p>\n
Gibb shot 50 per cent from both the field and beyond the arc, went a perfect 2-for-2 from the free-throw line and added three assists and two steals.<\/p>\n
Canada held a 26-14 advantage in points in the paint, shooting 52.5 per cent from that area. Points off turnovers were even at 11, while Senegal held a narrow 31-29 edge in bench scoring.<\/p>\n
Canada dressed all 12 players, with Makeer, Avery Howell, Jasmine Bascoe and Cearah Parchment making their Senior Women\u2019s National Team debuts in FIBA competition.<\/p>\n
Canada improved to 1-0 at the tournament, while Senegal fell to 0-1.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The team will have a day off Tuesday before facing the Philippines on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. ET \/ 4:30 p.m. PT. The game will be streamed live on DAZN.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GUADALAJARA, Mexico (Aug. 17, 2026) \u2014 Canada\u2019s Senior Women\u2019s National Team opened the FIBA Olympic Pre-Qualifying Tournament with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":862148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44],"class_list":["post-862147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}