Team Canada's games from the second day of the Oceania Zonals had us placing the World #5 seeded Japanese, followed by the developing team from South Africa.

The Japanese have improved their game significantly, but still were not able to get past our World #3 ranked team, which ran with a full set of lines giving all 12 players significant court time.

However, it was much closer than we would have liked as it marked the first ever overtime game between our two countries. In fact, it was a double overtime game! The game was not without its controversies though, as Japan protested a referee's decision, which was eventually upheld. This forced the final 2:56 of the Overtime Period to be replayed.

The scores after the quarters and overtime were:

TEAM    1. 2. 3. 4.  OT  OT
JAPAN   10 21 28 34  35  35
CANADA  11 18 28 34  35  36

Japan took the tip at first overtime and #3 (Yu Nagayasu) tipped it to the floor and then picked it up again (perfectly legal) but one of the refs called it as illegal and gave the ball to Canada, which was the call that precipitated the Japanese protest.

In the replayed overtime, we eventually won the game by a score of 35-34. However, Japan had possession from the re-start but we forced a turnover, giving us a re-start from the middle. We had some difficulty getting it over half due to Japan's strong defense and called a time out. It was then a Canadian ball from the half and we scored with seven seconds left on the clock. Japan threw a wild ball down court that Garett caught which wrapped up the game.

We'll hear more about this game shortly when Marco checks in, and he'll also have some thoughts on our 43-21 victory over South Africa.

All of today's games are now posted to our results page.

Time to catch some zzzz's.

~Don~