Rising basketball star from Sudbury, Ont., scores in OT, leads Canada to bronze medal

Syla Swords celebrates after scoring the winning basket Sunday, giving Canada a 76-75 win and a bronze medal at the FIBA Women’s AmeriCup 2025.

Syla Swords, a rising basketball star who hails from Sudbury, led Canada to a 76-75 double-overtime victory over Argentina last weekend.

Swords, 18, not only led the team with 23 points, she scored the winning basket with 2.8 seconds left in Sunday’s game, giving Canada the bronze medal in the FIBA Women’s AmeriCup 2025.

Swords scored on a play drawn up during a timeout with Argentina up 75-74. Canada’s Delaney Gibb executed an inbound pass, finding Swords under the rim for the winning basket.

“I’m so excited to bring this medal home. It’s been 30 days of hard work. It’s amazing to have this,” Swords said in an interview with FIBA after the game.

“The best thing about this team is that we played together.”

Swords also had six rebounds and three assists.

“The 18-year-old led all players with a +17 plus-minus and knocked down a career-best five three-pointers, tied for the second-most ever by a Canadian in an AmeriCup game,” Canada Basketball said on its website.

“She finished the tournament with a team-leading 13 made threes and now has 124 points in 23 appearances for the program.”

Canada matched its third-place finish from the 2023 AmeriCup, while Argentina improved from a seventh-place result in that edition in Mexico, climbing three spots.

Both teams achieved their initial goal of securing a berth in the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2026 Qualifying Tournaments.