Samoa, New Zealand and Australia improve to 2-0, Tahiti notches first win on Day 2

GUAM (FIBA U17 Oceania Championship 2017) - Day two kicked off Tahiti v Marshall Islands. The first half was dominated by Tahiti, but Marshall Islands made their presence known in the second by scoring 25 of their 36 points in the second half. Unfortunately, it was too late as they were unable to overcome the 31-point final deficit.

The next match up of Samoa and New Caledonia was the closest of the tournament thus far. Both teams traded basket for basket most of the game, that is until Samoa pushed away in the fourth quarter. The 82-64 final score didn’t reflect how close this game really was. Samoa’s Dru-Leo Leusogi Ape put on an impressive performance with 22 points. 

New Zealand played the host nation Guam in a thriller for the home fans. Guam made its presence known early, winning the first quarter against the much taller New Zealand. Size and athleticism turned out to be the deciding factor New Zealand accumulated 47 total rebounds. Team Guam put up a good effort with Gabriel Simon making 54.4% of his 3 pointers which added to his game-high 22 points but New Zealand ultimately came out with the 12-point win.

Australia continued to show the rest of the pack how dominant they are with a 136-point win over Palau. Putting up their highest score of the tournament so far, Palau showed great improvement from game one but was simply outmatched. Kody Stattmann is emerging as an early MVP candidate, averaging 34 points per game over Day 1 and 2.

Tuesday’s results

Marshall Islands 97-36 Tahiti

New Caledonia 64-82 Samoa

New Zealand 90-78 Guam

Australia 168-32 Palau

Wednesday's games

New Caledonia v Palau

Samoa v Australia

Guam v Tahiti

New Zealand v Marshall Islands