Dubai: Two-time defending champions USA continued their unbeaten march towards a third straight title with a 113-71 thrashing of a clueless Chinese team on Thursday to set up a semi-final meeting against Serbia in the 2014 Fiba U17 World Championship at the Hamdan Sports Complex.

The USA, who are on an unbeaten 13-match run in the age-group competition, were always in control after powering to a 30-11 lead at the end of the opening quarter, and they increased their advantage to 51-25 at half-time.

With the match slowly slipping out of control, China realised that the only thing they could do was attempt to avoid the embarrassment of a huge defeat.

But the Americans were relentless, as they again outscored the Chinese 34-18 to lead 85-43 at the end of the third period.

With Thursday’s win, the USA extended their unbeaten run in the competition to 13 wins, including a cumulative eight wins from the previous two tournaments held in Germany and Lithuania in 2010 and 2012 respectively.

Despite knowing full well that this record may be under threat in the ongoing competition, American coach Donald Showalter promised no let-up. “The kids were really focused on the match from the start and that helped us take a good lead and then keep up the pressure. The idea is to have all the confidence we can in our players and take each game as a challenge,” Showalter told Gulf News.

For the winners, Henry Ellenson came off the bench for a game-high 21 points, including ten rebounds, while Diamond Stone was his usual confident self, contributing 17 points. “There are a lot of things that we can feel happy about and there are a few things that we need to improve,” Stone said.

The defending champions’ opponents in Friday’s semi-finals will be Serbia, who defeated Canada 71-64 in the second quarter-final.

Canada were always trying to play catch-up with their European opponents, trailing Serbia 16-27 and 40-47 in the first two quarters. After the first five minutes of the third period had not yielded a single point, Canada came closest to scoring through an Eddie Ekiyor three-pointer and skipper Jamal Murray’s drive to lead for the first time at 48-47 with 4.26 minutes remaining. The North Americans finally trooped off with a slender three-point advantage 55-52 with one final period left.

The final quarter witnessed a gripping contest, with free throws from Nikola Rakicevic and David Miladinovic tying the two sides 56-56.

However, it was the Serbians who turned on the intensity when it mattered most with point guard Stefan Peno outstanding in scoring seven of his 16 points in the last four minutes.

The other two quarter-finals were scheduled to be played later in the night, with last year’s runners-up Australia taking on Puerto Rico and France facing Spain in the all-European meeting.