Canada needed each of Cindy Ouellet's game-high 35 points for its fifth-place finish at the wheelchair basketball world championships.
The 34-year-old point guard's layup with 34.2 seconds left in regulation put her team ahead for good and she added a foul shot to cement a 64-62 victory over a resilient Australian outfit at the Dubai World Trade Centre on Monday.
Amber Merritt topped Australia with 33 points but missed two crucial shot attempts from in close in the last 23 seconds. Her teammate, fellow forward Georgia Munro Cook, put the Aussies ahead 62-60 with 56.9 seconds remaining on two free throws after Canadian guard Elodie Tessier was assessed a foul.
Ouellet cut the margin in half, making one of two shots from the free throw line. Canada, which last medalled at the event with its 2014 gold, was also fifth at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and 2018 worlds in Hamburg, Germany.