TESSA Lavey’s quest for her first Olympic gold has come to an end after the Australian women’s basketball team was defeated by the USA in Wednesday’s quarter-final knockout.
The Opals were outclassed by the USA, 79-55 – their lowest Olympic score in 21 years.
Heading into the clash, the green and gold outfit took a little confidence from beating the USA in a lead-up game in Las Vegas.
Coach Sandy Brondello said the defeat was a tough end to the tournament.
“We’re obviously disappointed with the result. We faced a very focused and aggressive USA team today and found it really hard to score or be able to execute the way we wanted to,” she said.
“I’m really proud of these girls and I keep saying it’s been a really interesting few weeks that we’ve had to deal with, losing a big part of our team and trying to find our identity and with limited preparation it was hard to find that having played two games together in 18 months.
“That’s the Covid world we lived in, especially coming from Australia, and now we’ve got to learn from this and be better prepared heading into the World Cup in Sydney next year.”
Earlier, on Tuesday, the Opals moved into the finals and kept their dreams of a Tokyo Olympic medal alive after a 27-point win against Puerto Rico.
Swan Hill born and bred Lavey, who didn’t play against China, checked in and it was her first points in Tokyo which sent Australia ahead 35-33 to cap an 8-0 run for the Opals.
The Opals, winless after two pool games against Belgium and China, needed to beat Puerto Rico by 25 points to advance to the next round and, after trailing at quarter time, produced one of the great comebacks to win by 27 points, 96-69.
