Team Puerto Rico celebrates victory. 3rd day of the 2009 FIBA U19 World Championship for men, Auckland, New Zealand. 04 July 2009.
AUCKLAND (FIBA U19 World Championship) - Puerto Rico has continued Angola’s horror run in the tough Group A of the FIBA U19 World Championship, claiming a lop-sided 86-49 victory.
The win was set up by a dominant defensive first half, where they held Angola to just eight points in the first quarter and ten in the second.
At half time, Puerto Rico’s Mike Rosario had 19 points, more than the entire Angolan team. He finished with 28 points, while Carlos Lopez has his best game of the tournament with 13 points and 11 rebounds.
In the second half, Angola showed some better form heading into the classification games, scoring 31 points for the half and holding Puerto Rico to 40.
Angola were led by forward Miguel Kiala with 13 points and 5 rebounds. He is currently leading the tournament, averaging 12 rebounds per game. Hermenegildo Dos Santos also gave good service with 11 points and 8 rebounds.
With the victory Puerto Rico have likely sewn up second place in Group A, and will go on to face the top three teams from Group B – USA, France and Egypt – in the second round on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
Angola will play Iran on Monday in the first of their two classification games.
FIBA