Canada’s 3×3 women’s basketball team put the perfect finish on its 2022 season Sunday, winning the Constanta Finals in Romania with a 21-16 final triumph over France.
The Canadian squad entered the weekend as the top-ranked team and went undefeated through the preliminary games versus Romania, France and Lithuania before beating Germany in the semifinal and France in the final.
For a Canadian team led by sisters Katherine and Michelle Plouffe, along with Kacie Bosch and Paige Crozon, it was their fourth series stop victory this season, a year where the foursome won all four events they played. Meanwhile, Crozon featured in five women’s series events.
Early in Sunday’s final, both Plouffe sisters missed layups, but Canada rebounded from an early six-point deficit, scoring an unanswered nine points, which drove them toward the championship.
Michelle led the team with a game-high 14 points in the final as the Canadian team featuring this roster went undefeated when they played together.
“We had confidence in each other, we knew we could make stops, and the rest of our defence is really important because if we know we can make stops, we can turn it into buckets, so we just stayed consistent,” Michelle said after the final. “We were gritty, and we just fought through it. It’s been a crazy summer.”
The final wasn’t Canada’s first victory of the weekend over France; however, having beaten the French 21-12 in the preliminary game, led by yet another dominant Michelle Plouffe performance.
Although Canada fell to France in the 3×3 World Cup final earlier in the summer, the win in the Women’s Series proved they are the best in the world, particularly with their first-choice roster.
While Canada’s women’s 3×3 team did not compete at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games due to qualifying rules permitting only one gender per country to compete, they hope to be in good form ahead of Paris 2024, with their eyes set on Olympic gold.
