Jackson Takes Back Seat As Australia Rout Russia In Final

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday June 19, 2000

MAUREEN FITZHENRY

AUSTRALIA 90

RUSSIA 67

Lauren Jackson may be the Australian Opals' biggest asset, but last night they showed they can dish out the damage without her.

Smart shooter Carla Boyd, power forward Trisha Fallon and dynamic centre Jenny Whittle took over the offence and propelled Australia to a 90-67 grand final victory in the Slam DownUnder Olympic test event for basketball at Sydney's SuperDome. Keeping the pressure on Jackson, Russia's hot-shot young bookends forwards Svetlana Abrossimova, 19, and Ioulia Skopa, 22 began strong and fast, putting up 13 points between them in the first 10 minutes for an eight-point Russian lead.

Australia were forced to take drastic action.

They pulled star forward Jackson, the tournament's highest scorer and rebounder, for almost six minutes to try to redirect the pressure.

And it worked.

A pair of three-point winners by Whittle put the Opals on top and Fallon kept the momentum going by delivering the next nine points.

In just eight minutes, Australia had mounted an 11-point advantage and led 47-34 by half-time.

Shortly into the next session, Jackson turned her ankle under the basket and sat out another eight minutes.

But her team still kept going strong and Russia completely crumbled.

Boyd marked a full return to star status with 21 points for the game, Whittle had 16 and Fallon 12. Jackson had nine points and six rebounds.

Before the gold medal game, Skopa had vowed her team would play Jackson more closely and attempt to maintain control.

Russia had lost to the Opals 58-72 in their round-robin match, despite winning the Maher Cup series 2-1 the previous week.

Jackson and Fallon were top scorers in the week-long tournament, averaging 20.5 and 13.8 points a game respectively before the grand final. Skopa was third.

Jackson also led the way in rebounds (10.8 per game), two-point completions and free throws.

In the play-off for third place earlier in the day, Canada defeated Slovakia 55-43. Canada then made it a double for bronze when its men downed the New Zealand Tall Blacks 63-46.

Canada's women will play a three-game series against the Opals this week in Canberra, Albury and Griffith.

In wheelchair basketball, Liesl Tesch led Australia to a 52-50 last-minute cliffhanger over Canada to sweep the series 3-0 and serve the Canadian women their first losses since 1992.AUSTRALIA 90 (Boyd, 21 points; Whittle 16, Fallon 12) beat RUSSIA 67 (Skopa 13, Abrossimovia 13).