Injured Stingers can’t beat Gaiters

The ailing Concordia men’s basketball team suffered their eighth consecutive loss. They were unable to recover from a slow start and overall inconsistency against the Bishop’s Gaiters last Sunday losing 78-65.
The Stingers are still looking for their first league win this season, and recent injuries sidelining forwards Kurt MacAlpine and Tarik Azouz aren’t helping the cause.
“We’re a pretty banged-up team right now,” Head Coach John Dore stated before the game. “We’re missing two of our starters, so it’s up to the other guys to pick it up. We’ll see how it goes.”
The Concordia offence suffered a poor start producing a meager five points to Bishop’s 18 midway through the first half.
A time-out temporarily stop the bleeding, as Concordia started finding its offensive range, took better care of the ball, and got to the free-throw line. At one point the impressive rally momentarily brought the Stingers within two points of the Gaiters sparking some home crowd support.
All that was short-lived though, as a couple of costly turnovers in the dying minutes led to a 34-23 deficit for Concordia at the end of the first half.
The second half was just as scrappy as the first, as both teams turned the ball over several times.
A low field goal percentage and a barrage of costly fouls by the Stingers helped the Gaiters widen their lead to as much as 21 points.
Several of the fouls called against Concordia came under fire from both the bench and the home crowd who were visibly upset with the officiating at certain moments.
Nevertheless, the Stingers once again closed the gap by pulling to within nine points late in the game, thanks to a couple fast break baskets, drawing fouls, and converting on three-point play opportunities.
Guard and co-captain Gavin Musgrave also turned it on by mixing shots from behind the arc with athletic drives to the basket.
But every time the Stingers would get close the Gaiters would come right back with key baskets of their own.
The mood was decidedly desperate in the closing moments of the game as Concordia was forced to resort to the last-ditch attempt fouling technique in order to stop the clock from running down to loss number eight.
Concordia sent Bishop’s to the free-throw line in the hopes that their opponents would miss and give them a chance to score at the other end.
Unfortunately for the Stingers, the Gaiters continued with their stellar display at the line while Concordia’s desperation three-point attempts just wouldn’t go down, shutting the door on any possibility of comeback.