Women?s baseball makes int?l debut

The Canadian women’s basketball team held off the United States 81-73 Monday night to win the gold medal at the Pan American Games in Toronto.

Backcourt mate Kia Nurse was the star of the game for Canada with 33 points, but the tournament was also somewhat of a coming out part for Langlois, who is fast growing into Canada’s floor general.

Nurse’s brilliance deprived her UConn teammates Moriah Jefferson and Breanna Stewart of leading the U.S.to its first Pan Am women’s basketball title since 2007.

Unfortunately for the US, there was another UConn player dominating the game for Canada.

Natalie Achonwa added 13 in her first tournament with Canada since tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee a year ago. Then when we started fouling, they were 13-for-13 from the free throw line in the first half. “I think it’s great Toronto is putting this on”.

The American rapper is set to perform at the event’s closing ceremony on July 26, but some mad Canucks are doing anything they can to stop it. Upset that the Toronto 2015 organising committee chose the 38-year-old to headline the ceremony ahead of local artists, more than 50 000 people have signed an online petition on Change.org demanding that the rapper be replaced with a Canadian act.

Canada was also competing for medals in taekwondo later in the evening.

The United States (4-1) and Canada (5-0) were tied at 36 at halftime, but playing in front of a rowdy home crowd inside the former Maple Leaf Gardens, Canada jumped ahead for good in the third quarter.

Earlier, Canada won a silver and bronze medal in rhythmic gymnastics. Colombia’s 56 podium finishes is enough for sixth place, while Argentina ranks seventh with 51 and Venezuela is eighth with 26.

Kentucky’s Linnae Harper had 16 points and Notre Dame’s Taya Reimer finished with 10 points. American Jasmine Kerber took the bronze with a score of 15.833.

Fighting Irish Media has been on hand in Toronto this week and offered bonus on-site social media coverage for the Pan Am semifinals and gold medal game on Sunday and Monday.

“I was just hoping to get the momentum switched”, Nurse said.

Her victory was swiftly followed by a triumph for compatriot Eli Dershwitz as the world junior champion overcame Joseph Polossifakis of Canada 15-9.

“I’ve got the classic Clara Hughes response”, said the 26-year-old Calgary native. “Because the negative thing for me was only the lack of luck we had”.

Gabriella Page of Blainville, Que., added a bronze when she fell 15-13 to Dagmara Wozniak of the U.S.in the women’s sabre. The women’s best result was a silver in 1999 in Winnipeg. Potvin lost 6-3 to Mexico’s Saul Gutierrez in the final.