The United States wheelchair rugby team delivered an early blow to Canada with a 53-48 victory in their opening group stage match at the 2024 Paralympic Games, on Thursday.

They were led by Chuck Aoki, in his fifth Games, who had 21 tries, followed by Josh Wheeler with 11. Canada was led by Zak Madell (Edmonton), whose 31 tries topped all scorers, while Cody Caldwell (Peterborough, Ont.) had five.

Canada got off to a sloppy start, turning the ball over four times, including three steals, by the end of the first quarter. The U.S. capitalized and scored on every one of those turn overs.

Aoki played a big part in three of them and had six out of the 14 tries for the US when the first period expired.

During the 5:45 to the 6:39 mark of period two, Canada was able to force a series of positive defensive sequences on the USA — a 40-second shot clock violation, a steal, an out-of-bounds turnover.

In the next possession, the Canadians scored to draw level 23-23.

That would be as close as Canada would come as they trailed the rest of the way.

America’s Aoki managed to swipe a passing ball once in the third quarter, and steal another two for a couple more turnovers that eventually sealed Canada’s fate.

Overall, the red and white had 10 turnovers, of which four were out-of-bounds, and six were steals. The US on the other hand conceded five turnovers of which three were out-of-bounds turnovers and two were steals.

Madell pointed to the errors, post-game.

“They’re a strong team,” he said, to CBC Sports. “They’ve got a great key defence.

“We maybe didn’t play our cleanest game. They played a pretty clean game and came [out] on top.”

Canada plays it’s second game of the group stage against Germany on Friday at 11:30 EST. After the loss against the USA, this has now become a must-win game.