BEL/CHN - Vanloo-led Belgium hand China first loss

TOULOUSE (FIBA U17 World Championship for Women) - Julie Vanloo erupted for 31 points to lead an in-form Belgium past China 90-80 on Tuesday.

The result saw China suffer their first defeat (3-1) and drop behind Belgium (3-1) in Group B’s standings.

Belgium, whose last game was a 55-54 win over Spain in a rematch of last year’s U16 European Championship final on Sunday, got off to a great start, leading 21-16 at the end of the first quarter with Emma Meesseman and Hanne Mestdagh amassing seven points each in the period.

The Chinese girls were lacking the shooting accuracy they had displayed in their first three games and that allowed their opponents to pull away.

Julie Vanloo took over the scoring duties from Meesseman and Mestdagh, accounting for 13 points in the second quarter alone as Belgium led 50-36 at the break.

The Belgians would keep it going in the third quarter and enter the final frame up 73-55. China launched a comeback but Daniel Goethals showed his vast coaching experience by calling timeouts at the right time and his team kept their nerve down the stretch.

Quotes

Daniel Goethals (Belgium head coach): We knew that one of the keys against China was to limit their three-point attempts and we did a good job of that in the first half.

Wang Guizhi (China head coach): We did not play well as a team. We didn't get to play many European teams before so we knew it was going to be a tough game. Maybe in the future we need to look at playing them in warm-up games too.

FIBA/LOC