Coming off a three-game winning streak before the Christmas break, the Concordia Stingers men’s basketball team beat the UQAM Citadins 64-53 on home court last Friday to win their fourth straight game.
On this night, the Stingers played great on the boards and played good defence as UQAM committed 21 turnovers.
The Stingers won the tipoff but UQAM would get the first point of the game with a free throw by forward Alexandre Bernard, 43 seconds into the quarter. Concordia would respond with a basket by forward Mukiya Post, 20 seconds later.
The Stingers were hit with some bad news as forward Josue-Smith Telfort went down with a leg injury. Concordia’s head coach, John Dore, said that he will see a doctor on Monday. UQAM took a 13-8 lead by the 3:18 mark of the first quarter after two successful free-throw attempts by guard Richard Addai and a two-point jump shot by Bernard. However, the Stingers were able to tie the game at 13 apiece before the quarter was up on a three-point jump shot by Post just before the final buzzer sounded.
The Citadins would regain the lead in the second quarter with a couple of baskets by Addai. After the Citadins took a 22-17 lead, Stingers’ centre Zach Brisebois would bring Concordia within three with his two free-throw shots to make it 22-19. However, UQAM forward, Rubens Poteau, and guard Rigobert Katahwa would combine for the Citadins next seven points to give their team a 29-19 lead with just over three minutes to go in the quarter. But with the help of Post and guard Jean Moussignac, the Stingers would cue a comeback before the quarter was up. From a 10-point lead, the Citadins led by just two, 31-39, heading into the third quarter.
Stingers would tie and take the lead in the third quarter with a 9-0 run that included back-to-back three pointers by guard Adam Chmielewski, which would give the Stingers a 36-31 lead just 2:11 into the quarter. The Citadins would only get their first points of the quarter at the 5:53 mark with a basket by Poteau. Post got a couple of baskets, including a three-pointer to increase the Stingers’ lead to 47-41 going into the fourth quarter.
Stingers would not surrender the lead in the fourth quarter and only gave up 12 points to the visitors in the final frame. Despite only being 55 per cent on the free-throw line on Friday, Chmielewski made his last four free-throw attempts in the final 54 seconds of the game to seal the 64-53 Stingers win.
The Stingers’ top point getter was Post with 20 points and two rebounds in the win.
Dore was happy with the win, despite what he felt was a poor first half by the Stingers and said that the team is improving every day.
“[In the] first half, we played sloppy and took a lot of shots and [in the] second half we played great defence and [our] offence was much better,” he said.
