Madariaga Valdemoro scored 22 of her 30 points in one quarter to lead Spain past China 75-67 here on Monday for its second straight win at the women's basketball tournament of the Athens Olympic Games.
Shooting 4-for-5 from beyond the arch and 9-for-11 from the field, Valdemoro scored 22 points in the first quarter to lift the Spaniards to a stunning 34-10 lead over the Asian champion.
Trailing by some 20 points through the second and third quarter,the Chinese women surged back in the final quarter and cut their deficit to 75-67 with 33 seconds remaining. However, that was toolate.
"It sounds crazy, but I do have a better first quarter when I scored 27 points in a Spanish league game," said Valdemoro, who also added six steals and three assists in 30 minutes of play.
"But it's not the same situation, because this time we are playing in the Olympics, especially with such a strong team like China," she added.
China head coach Gong Luming admitted he made mistakes in defensive tactics early in the game.
"Our coach team made mistakes in designing our tactics, especially that of defense," Gong said.
"We know Valdemoro is a very good player, but we also got the information that she had not been training normally because of injury," Gong added. "So we did not press her hard enough in defense."
Spain, 80-78 over-time winners over Czech Republic on Saturday,improved to 2-0 in group B while China had one win and one loss inhand.
"It's an important win for us," said Spain head coach Vicente Rodriguez. "We played a great first quarter when we had good intensity, especially in defense."
"We lost a little intensity later on and allowed China come to the game a little more," Rodriguez added. "China put a lot of pressure on us late in the game while our players got tired and began to make more mistakes."
Chen Nan led China with 18 points and nine rebounds and Ye Li added 12 points.
"We did not play well in defense at the beginning, which made the game very difficult for us," Chen said. "But we fought back and gave our opponents some pressure late in the game."
(Xinhua News Agency August 17, 2004)
