Flying back from Europe, Humboldt’s own Paige Crozon still can’t believe the summer that she and her Canadian 3×3 teammates have had.
Draped with red and white Canadian flags at the Constanta Final, the quartet of teammates celebrated as they knocked off France 21-16 to claim the FIBA women’s 3×3 circuit title on Sunday.
“I don’t think it’s really set in for me yet, it’s mostly relief that we won,” said Crozon on Tuesday back home in Canada. “I get home and my daughter is just so excited to see the trophy and see the medal, so it was an unbelievable moment for me. It makes me emotional thinking about.”
It’s the fourth victory on tour for Crozon and Team Canada in the 2022 season, who ran the table in Romania to lift the trophy with an undefeated 5-0 record.
Sunday’s win was made even sweeter considering France denied the Canadians a World Cup championship earlier this summer, as Crozon settled for a silver medal.
“I think we actually were successful in that last game because of the failures that we had early on, as hard as it was in that moment,” said Crozon.
Crozon scored four points and had one rebound in the championship game and averaged four-point-six points per game in total, which was tied for eighth-best in the entire tournament.
With the victory, Canada has now moved into fifth place in FIBA’s qualification rankings for the 2024 Summer Olympics.
It’s a key victory for the quartet of Crozon, sisters Michelle and Katherine Plouffe, and Kacie Bosch, as Canada was not able to compete at the inaugural women’s 3×3 tournament at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics due to countries being limited to send one gendered team in which the men’s side was selected.
Crozon is hopeful that with the confidence earned in Romania, they’ll finally be able to seize their shot in Paris.
“Our team has had our hearts set on making the Olympics since 2020,” she said. “As we all know, it didn’t work out so well for us then. But now, we’re even more motivated to try to clinch that 2024 Olympic spot.”