Stingers get revenge for playoff exit

The Concordia Stingers women’s basketball team aren’t used to getting off to quick starts in recent years. A year ago they lost their first four games heading into the Christmas break before winning eight of their last 12 games.
Despite with six new players on their roster, it looks like the Stingers are looking to keep that momentum going as they opened the season with a 70-59 victory over the No. 8 UQAM Citadins on Friday evening.
Less than 24 hours after the win in their home opener, the Stingers fell to the same UQAM team in the Citadins’ home opener 65-59.
“UQAM did what I expected them to do,” said Stingers head coach Keith Pruden. “They were irritated that they lost [Friday night] and came out with more pressure and hit shots early. We played well and started executing our game plan with about four minutes left in the game, but that was about 27 minutes too late.”
The parallels between the two games were striking.
After limiting the Citadins to only 20 points in the first half on Friday and taking a 34-20 lead into the half, the Stingers were held to 20 points of their own on Saturday and trailed 32-20 at the half in UQAM’s home opener.
“On Friday we came out ready to play,” said Stingers guard Yasmin Jean-Philippe. “[Saturday] we were flat footed.”
“We came out flat,” said Stingers captain Ebony Morris. “The way we played in the last four minutes should have been how we played the entire game.”
Concordia’s win on Friday in their home and season opener was their first in a regular season opener since the 2004-05 season when they also beat UQAM.
“Our exhibition was great and we have to continue to get better,” said Keith Pruden. “To remain competitive we have to improve down the stretch like we did the last two years. But, it’s nice to open the season with a win – especially against the team that knocked you out of the playoffs.”
On Saturday, the Stingers were down by 14 points going into the third quarter, but closed the gap to seven at one point in the quarter.
“If we played five more minutes of organized basketball, we would have had a shot at winning it,” said Pruden. “We’re still finding our feet, but we have a great group that works hard. They are fun to coach and they have a good, exciting style and have talent. I’m optimistic as long as we could address the problems.”
Those problems, namely, would be turning the ball over and allowing offensive rebounds.
The Stingers had 22 turnovers in Saturday’s game and 17 in Friday’s game.
On Friday they allowed UQAM to get 19 offensive rebounds, and on Saturday they allowed 16 – 10 alone to Citadins’ guard Stephanie Youakim.
Next up for the Stingers is the always tough Laval Rouge et Or.
Laval has yet to play this season, and Concordia will have a home-and-home series similar to the one against UQAM this week.
Laval had a very tough exhibition season, according to Pruden, which led to them not being ranked in the top-10.
“Their top two recruits are national team players,” Pruden said. “They lost some key players from last year, but they are still very talented and very deep. They weren’t successful in the exhibition season not because of their talent but because of their youth.”
“It’s going to be tough,” said Morris. “They are bigger than we are and we’ll have to figure out how to deal with them this week.”
“Laval is all we’re thinking about now,” said Jean-Philippe. “They are a skilled team and we have to come out and work harder,” she said.
“From Tuesday to Thursday all we’re going to be doing is preparing for Laval,” Pruden said. “There are no bad teams in the Quebec conference and it’s going to come down to the team that is more prepared,” he said.
The Stingers play on Friday at 8:00 p.m. at Concordia gym and then at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday in Quebec City.