Brazil’s Kelly Santos, in yellow, smiles as she watches the ball clear the net and score against Jamaica in their Group A women’s game at the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro on Friday night. Brazil defeated Jamaica 81-69. Jamaica’s players are Oberon Pitterson (11), Vanessa Gidden (13) and Althea Byfield (15). - AP

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil:

JAMAICA’S WOMEN’S basketball team outrebounded Brazil 42-28 and knocked down 71 per cent of their free throws but still ended up the losers in their opening match at the Pan American Games on Friday night.

Hosts Brazil led throughout to win 81-69. They went up by as many as 21 points in the third quarter, but Jamaica never gave up hope and fought hard throughout and, but for 27 turnovers, could have surprised the more experienced Brazilians.

Coach Rerita Esannason said yesterday that she was proud of the Jamaican girls but they beat themselves.

“If you go back and you take a look at the statistics you will, see that we led in most categories but we turned the ball over 27 times to 17. So if you calculate that, and we lost by 12, it makes a lot of a difference,” Esannason said.

“Talent wise the team is very good but the players are young and inexperienced. Brazil’s players have been together for several years. We had 12 bodies together here for only two days. We had some eight to nine players for a total of six days.”

Lost in third quarter

Coach Esannason said Jamaica lost the game in the third quarter.

“We came out and maybe we felt a bit comfortable or maybe fatigue set in but it was mental mistakes,” she said.

The leading scorer for Jamaica was centre Vanessa Gidden with 18 points. Another experienced centre, Simone Edwards, had 15 points and eight rebounds.

| Janeth Arcain led the way for Brazil with a game-high 28 points as she was on target with 11 of her 18 shots.

Looking ahead, Esannason said they had to get back to basics and take care of the ball.

“That (turnovers) seems to be our biggest problem. On the defensive end we also have got to communicate a bit more. There were a lot of backdoor screens that were set and there was some confusion within the defence in terms of switching off from one person to the next.”

Jamaica played Canada in their second match last night and will face Mexico tonight.

– E.T.