LIMA, PERU - The USA Men defeated host country, Peru by a 100-point margin (114-14) in front of an electric capacity crowd. Matt Scott (Detroit, MI) led Team USA in scoring with 22 points.

Scott is known for being the heart and soul of the USA Men’s Team. He used his typical high intensity to produce an impressive stat line in just under 13 minutes played. He was seven for seven on two-point attempts, one for two from three-point range, while converting on five of six from the free throw line. In addition to his sizzling hot scoring efficiency, Scott added four rebounds, six assists and two steals.

It was clear that Team Peru is a developing program and was facing a tall task in their matchup tonight. This often poses a different type of challenge for a team as strong as the Americans. With their goal of punching their ticket to Tokyo 2020 while at Lima 2019, Team USA had to ensure they focused on getting better despite the rising point differential against Peru.

When asked about this challenge, Matt Scott said: “those games can be quite difficult, but we have special goals for ourselves. … it doesn’t matter what the score board says, we have to meet those goals.”

Lima 2019 is the first ParaPan American Games that Jon Boie (Milton, WI) is competing in. He was part of the 2017 America’s Zone Qualification Tournament, but has his hopes set on qualifying for Tokyo and making that team. Today was the one-year mark from the start of the Tokyo 2020 Games. Boie added, “That’s been a dream for me since I was little, to go to the Paralympics. We’re just here to take care of business, we have one more game of pool play against Brazil before we move on to the quarterfinals.”

Boie is a 1.0 classification out of a total of 4.5. Boie may have more limited functionality, but he makes his presence felt in many other ways on the court.

“I’m not necessarily going to be the flashy guy putting up a lot of points, but my role is to get my teammates open,” said Boie.

He scored four points in the game, and had some well-timed seals, which means he set a low post pick for his teammates to follow him in for a lay-up.

Team USA will face Brazil (also 2-0 in Pool play) tomorrow at 12:30pm central. Team USA plans to carry their momentum forward in this competition but doesn’t take Brazil lightly. Scott talked about what to expect from Brazil.

“Brazil is gonna bring a lot of energy. It’s a very enthusiastic, very skilled, very talented team. … we’re gonna have to bring our best performance to beat a team like that,” he said.

Tune in to TeamUSA.org to follow the Men’s and Women’s teams compete tomorrow, as they make their way to the cross-over round.