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MOSCOW REGION (FIBA U21 World Championship for Women) - The USA Basketball Women’s U21 World Championship Team (2-0) wasted no time in making a statement against rival Brazil (0-2) and finished with a dominating 96-40 victory on Saturday night at the 2007 FIBA U21 World Championship in Moscow, Russia. Four USA team members scored in double digits, including Crystal Langhorne (Maryland / Willingboro, N.J.), who shot a perfect 9-of-9 from the field and finished the night with 19 points and six rebounds.

"We were running our transition well and my teammates gave me some good looks," said Langhorne. "We wanted to come out with a lot of energy tonight because we knew how slow we were last night. Everybody came out and played hard tonight, defensively, offensively, everybody put out their best effort. If someone didn’t have a good offensive night, they played great on defense."

In other Group B action, Japan (1-1) edged Spain (1-1) 90-87, while Australia (1-1) took Hungary (1-1) 82-72. In Group A, France (2-0) downed Mali (0-2) 111-45, Canada (1-1) collected its first win with a 78-54 decision over China (0-2) and Russia (2-0) defeated Belgium (1-1) 77-87.

The American women continue play on July 1 against Hungary at 3:45 p.m. (7:45 a.m. EDT). Following a day off, the USA resumes preliminary round play on July 3 against Spain at 1:30 p.m. (5:30 a.m. EDT) and on July 4 the squad will celebrate the country’s birthday with an 11:15 a.m. (3:15 a.m. EDT) tip against Japan. Quarterfinals are slated for July 6, the semifinals will be held on July 7 and the finals are scheduled for July 8.

"I was so impressed with our start," said USA U21 National Team and Duke University (N.C.) head coach Joanne P. McCallie. "The first five really came out moving the basketball well, playing together as a team and were very, very committed defensively. I thought the message was sent in the first quarter. From there we continued to build on it. We’re getting better, we’re trying not to be too concerned about these teams. Obviously we need to be ready, but we think it’s about us, about us getting better and challenging ourselves to play every minute. We definitely did more of that tonight."

Langhorne put up the game’s first points in a game in which the North Americans never trailed. With the score at 4-3, Abby Waner (Duke / Highlands Ranch, Colo.) hit a jumper in the lane to kick-start a 13-2 run that was also powered by five points and a pair of offensive boards from Courtney Paris (Oklahoma / Piedmont, Calif.), while Langhorne contributed four points to give the USA a 19-5 lead. Brazil cut it to 19-8 with 11:25 to play in the first half before the red, white and blue took complete control.

The USA strung together 17 unanswered points, coming from five different players, that ended with the USA in command 36-8 with 6:39 still to go in the first half. The USA’s stifling defense held Brazil to one field goal in the second quarter at the 5:06 mark, outscored Brazil 30-5 in that span and capped the quarter with another scoring spree – this time 16-0 – and by halftime the game was in hand, 54-13.

"We’ve played this team before in the qualifying tournaments and the U19 World Championship so we kind of know how they are and mentally if you come out and you put pressure on them, they can’t face it," said Paris, who capped the night as the USA’s second leading scorer and top rebounder with 14 and nine, respectively, in 16 minutes of play. "It was one of the things we knew going into the game and we just executed.

With the game in its pocket, the USA continued to expand its lead in the second half and outscored Brazil 21-15 in the third quarter and 21-12 in the fourth.

In addition to Langhorne and Paris, contributing double digits in the victory were DeWanna Bonner (Auburn / Fairfield, Ala.) with 12 points and seven rebounds, while Laura Harper (Maryland / Elkins Park, Pa.) scored 10 points and had a team second best eight rebounds. Marscilla Packer (Ohio State / Pickerington, Ohio) was credited with five steals to go with her six points.

USA Basketball