The Spaniards, appearing in a second successive semi-final, raced into a 40-18 midway through the second quarter as they looked set to overpower their opponents with some slick and powerful basketball.

The Australians finally began to find their rhythm just before the break with Isaac Humphries and Harry Frohling helping to cut the deficit to 10 points at halftime.

Early in the third period that was cut to five but the Spanish rallied again to restore their 10 point advantage and led 67-59 with only two minutes remaining.

The Australians rallied again, however, and reeled off eight unanswered points led by two lay-ups from Tom Wilson to send the game into overtime after the scores were tied at 67-67.

Buoyed by their late comeback, the Australians looked the much stronger team during overtime and led by Humphries, Wilson and Frohling and Dejan Vasiljevic they eventually emerged with an 80-74 win.

Australia celebrate after clinching a dramatic semi-final win over Spain at the FIBA Under-17 World Championships ©Getty Images



There were no such problems for the two-time defending champions the US as they kept their remarkable record of never having lost a single match in the history of the Championships with a relatively straight forward 89-68 win over Serbia.

Despite stand-out performances from Nikola Rakicevic and Stefan Peno, with 19 and 18 points respectively, the Serbs succumbed to the greater firepower of the US.

The Americans led by just three points at halftime but pulled away in the third and fourth quarters thanks to the efforts of Malik Newman and Harry Giles in particular.

Newman top-scored with 15 points while Giles registered 10 points and 12 rebounds.

Malik Newman led the US scoring charts as they overcame Serbia in their semi-final match ©Getty Images



In the classification matches, Argentina beat Greece 65-54 to set-up a ninth place play-off with Italy who overcame Angola 77-71.

Greece and Angola will play for 11th place while 13th place will be decided by Egypt and Japan who saw off Philippines and the United Arab Emirates respectively.

The Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Sports Complex will be the setting for tomorrow's (Saturday) bronze and gold medal matches as well as the final classification games.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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