Lima, Peru. Team USA will advance to the gold medal game of the Parapan American Games Lima 2019 after their 50-26 victory over Colombia in today’s semifinal.
In the lead from wire to wire, top scorers for today’s match were Ray Hennagir with 12 and Chuck Aoki with 11.
Canada also advanced to the gold medal final after their 56-46 win over Brazil in the earlier semi final of the day. This will be the second meeting of USA and Canada at these Games. The two played on Sunday in an exciting game that saw the U.S. finish on top, 54-51.
At stake in tomorrow’s gold medal final is qualification for the top finisher in the Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020. Failure to qualify will force one of tomorrow’s teams to compete in a qualification tournament in early 2020, date and location TBA.
USA v. Canada is a well documented rivalry that athletes on both teams look forward to. Their 2015 gold medal final game came out in favor of the Canadians, a finish the U.S. is not looking to repeat. “Toronto was an awesome atmosphere and they definitely had the crowd on their side, said Eric Newby. Both teams are really strong and we had a great match up yesterday. I think tomorrow will be much the same and will come right down to the wire but, I think we are going to come out on top at these Games.”
For full tournament highlights and scores visit usawr.org. You can catch all of the excitement from Lima on the Team USA livestream including tomorrow’s gold medal final.