taiyuan, china, nov. 28 (xinhua) -- elizabeth cambage proved too strong in the paint as shanxi thrashed *n 100-73 to earn its third consecutive victory in as many *s in the women's chinese basketball association (wcba) league here on thursday.
cambage shot 13 of 19 from the field to score a *-high 31 points in less than 24 minutes. with a 25-point margin in hand, shanxi rested the australian center for the entire final period.
"we couldn't fight defense against their *g center cambage. we didn't have the tools to defend against this," admitted *n head coach *oslav popov.
cambage, wu tongtong and yu dong all com*ned for 25 points for shanxi in the match, before a three-pointer from yu qi set the first quarter score at 28-21.
cambage's dominance went on into the second quarter, but maggie lucas made a few shots in a row from behind the arc to put *n back in the *, though shanxi still ma*d to extend its advantage to 14 points into half-time.
cambage headed back to the bench as shanxi led by 20-plus points midway through the third quarter, and *n failed to rally afterwards.
shanxi's fu jinqiu and wu tongtong added 13 and 10 points respectively.
"i'm happy that we won the *. we executed what the coach had told us quite well," fu said.
"we accomplished the two goals that we had for this *: one was to win, the other was to not overload important players," said shanxi's head coach cesar ruperez garcia.
"as a team, *ry player is too far from expectation that we have for this season. right now we just keep working to get the chemistry. when we get the chemistry, *ry player will be able to bring good things for the team," he added.
lucas led *n's charge with 24 points including six three-pointers. before being fouled out, han ziqi scored 15 points, the only other *n player in double digits.
"our team played a very good first half. in the second half, the quality of their domestic players went up, and we couldn't catch them until the end of the *," popov pointed out.
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