The club championship in South America has a history spanning decades with historical Brazilian dominance, but this year, a second tournament open to the rest of the Americas started to award a confederation championship. With five teams coming from South America, their champion Antioquia joined this group in Chihuahua, Mexico with the three non-South American teams. The other group will play next weekend and top two teams in each group will advance to the final stage.
Rather than include these teams on our roster tracker, due to the short nature of this tournament, players meeting our usual criteria are listed below:
Antioquia (Colombia): Mayra Caicedo (Tarleton State)
Centauros (Mexico): Destiny Pitts (Texas A&M), Kristen Spolyar (Butler)
Salvadorenas (El Salvador): Brandi Harvey-Carr (Pittsburgh), Waleska Perez (Weatherford [JC]), Porsche Poole (Michigan State), Emily Tevez (Notre Dame de Namur [DII]), Lupe Vazquez (Pasadena [JC])
Teporacas (Mexico): Estela Gutierrez (Simpson University [NAIA]), Kamilah Jackson (Hawaii)
September 15
Two of the teams in this group are from Chihuahua, Mexico and neither are the team from there that won the strongest league in the country. Teporacas played first and Colombian Esperanza Delgado helped them show that the expanded tournament will offer plenty of competitiveness, overcoming a sluggish start to defeat Yuliany Paz and Antioqui 79-76. The second game was excellent as Centauros prevailed 95-89 in overtime behind Kristen Spolyar and Destiny Pitts against Salvadorenas, which was led by Donasja Scott.
https://www.fiba.basketball/wblamericas/2023/game/1509/Teporacas-Indeportes-Antioquia#|tab=boxscore
Teporacas [79]: Delgado 21/6r Payan 15/6r Rios 14/7r Jackson 10/6r Gutierrez 4
Antioquia [76]: Paz 21/16r C. Lopez 12/11r/8a Caicedo 9/6r
https://www.fiba.basketball/wblamericas/2023/game/1509/Centauros-de-Chihuahua-Salvadorenas#|tab=boxscore
Centauros [95]: Spolyar 24/6r Pitts 23/9r/6a Soto 17 Taylor 13/12r Saad 12/6r/7a
Salvadorenas [89]: Scott 25 Harvey-Carr 19/14r Poole 18/9a Perez 11/12r/8a Vazquez 8 Tevez 3/7r
September 16
The two teams that lost their openers played in the first game on Saturday and Yuliany Paz and Antioquia put themselves firmly back in the picture with an 89-68 win over Salvadorenas despite the best efforts of Porsche Poole and Brandi Harvey-Carr. The two local teams played and hosts Centauros got strong games from Destiny Pitts and Kristen Spolyar to win 82-75 against Teporacas.
https://www.fiba.basketball/wblamericas/2023/game/1609/Indeportes-Antioquia-Salvadorenas#|tab=boxscore
Antioquia [89]: Paz 20/9r Murillo 18 Prens 14/14r Ramirez 10 Caicedo 8
Salvadorenas [68]: Poole 24/9a Harvey-Carr 23/8r Scott 8 Vazquez 6 Perez 2 Tevez 0/6r
https://www.fiba.basketball/wblamericas/2023/game/1609/Centauros-de-Chihuahua-Teporacas#|tab=boxscore
Centauros [82]: Pitts 28 Spolyar 27/9a Soto 15/6r
Teporacas [75]: Jackson 18/8r Delgado 18 Rios 16/7a Gutierrez 5
September 17
The trend of high-scoring games continued on Sunday with Salvadorenas needing a big win to have any chance of advancing and good games from Porsche Poole, Lupe Vazquez, and Brandi Harvey-Carr got them a 99-93 win, which was not enough. Manuela Rios led Teporacas, which let a big opportunity slip away. That left the last game of the day determining which team would win the group and it was Antioquia that took the lead for good in the second half to prevail 72-66 despite another good game by Kristen Spolyar for Centauros.
https://www.fiba.basketball/wblamericas/2023/game/1709/Salvadorenas-Teporacas#|tab=boxscore
Salvadorenas [99]: Poole 26/8r/11a Vazquez 22 Harvey-Carr 21/15r Scott 15 Tevez 10/11r Perez 0
Teporacas [93]: Rios 26/9r/9a/7s Barzola 19 Delgado 18 Jackson 14/12r Gutierrez 6
https://www.fiba.basketball/wblamericas/2023/game/1709/Centauros-de-Chihuahua-Indeportes-Antioquia#|tab=boxscore
Centauros [66]: Spolyar 23 Pitts 16/9r
Antioquia [72]: Caicedo 17 Paz 16 C. Lopez 11/10r/6a
Standings: Antioquia 2-1, Centauros 2-1, Salvadorenas 1-2, Teporacas 1-2
