Tag: Citadins

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Tough call doesn’t faze Stingers

The Stingers men’s soccer team overcame a 1-0 deficit in the first half to beat the UQAM Citadins 2-1 in their home opener on Friday night.

The Stingers fell 1-0 to the Citadins when UQAM was awarded a penalty kick in the 20th minute, after a foul in the penalty area, resulting in a UQAM player going down. Stingers goalkeeper Remo Taraschi was able to get a piece of the Citadins forward Remi Veilleux’s shot, but it wasn’t enough to stop it, giving UQAM a 1-0 lead.

Photo by Marilla Steuter-Martin.

The Stingers bench wasn’t happy with the call, but head coach Greg Sutton was happy his team didn’t let it affect their play and the score.

“Honestly, it seemed like our goalkeeper got the ball before the player went down, but not according to the referee,” he said of the penalty call. “[But] probably, your guess is as good as mine.

“The guys were able to persevere through all the strangeness, to put it kindly,” Sutton added. “We made some adjustments [at half time] and we were able to break them down and be fortunate enough to get a couple of goals and get a big win for us.”

Veilleux almost got his second goal of the game eight minutes later, when he broke through the Stingers defense and had a wide open net, but a quick sliding play by a Stingers defender prevented Veilleux from taking the shot.

Veilleux was denied yet another goal in the 11th minute of the first half, when a failed clearing attempt by the Stingers after a UQAM corner landed on Veilleux’s foot, but his shot hit the post, keeping the score 1-0 for the Citadins after one half.

A handball in the penalty area in the 25th minute of the second half gave the Stingers a penalty kick and a chance to tie the game. Stingers forward Andrew Bryan capitalized on the opportunity and tied the game 1-1.

With less than five minutes left and the game still tied, Stingers forward Massimo Tartaglia passed it to an open Gabriel Quinn from the side of the field, and his low but hard and accurate shot beat the Citadins goalkeeper Garbard Fénelon, giving the home team a 2-1 lead.

The game ended with a red card given to Stingers forward Amadou Lam after he accumulated his second yellow card of the game.

“We needed to get a win here,” said Sutton. “We had a tough game [against Montreal]. We played well, but the score didn’t dictate that. We were able to bounce back tonight and get a W, which we needed and now we can go into Sunday’s game [with confidence] and get a result against McGill.”

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Stingers men’s basketball team gets 2013 rolling with a win and a loss

Photo by Madelayne Hajek
Photo by Madelayne Hajek

The Concordia men’s basketball team returned from the winter break with a dominant performance against the McGill Redmen on Thursday night. The Stingers lost to the Redmen once this season and were looking to get even by winning on the road.

The game started off with both sides exchanging baskets early. Concordia started to turn up the pace and slowly took over the game with their high-tempo performance. McGill managed to stay within a couple of points. Stingers guard Kyle Desmarais’ buzzer-beating three-pointer from half court was the difference at the end of the first quarter.

In the second quarter, Concordia kept up the pace and found success on both sides of the court. Concordia’s man-to-man defence was effective against McGill’s offence. The Stingers were dominant on the boards as well. They finished the game with 46 rebounds, almost twice as many as McGill.

The visiting Stingers team started to pull ahead halfway through the quarter. Seven straight points in one minute and a half put the maroon and gold ahead. McGill narrowed the score line, but Concordia’s high-powering offence allowed them to take a 38-31 lead into the halftime break.

The Stingers exploded in the third quarter, managing to score 27 points. When the score was 41-35 in their favour, Concordia went on a 10-0 run giving them a 16 point lead. They led by as much as 19 points in the quarter. By the end of the frame Con U had a comfortable 18 point lead.

It was all but over in the final quarter. The Redmen were unable to string a few baskets together and mount a comeback. McGill and Concordia traded baskets and each added 18 more points to their total. The Stingers won the game with a final score of 83-65.

Concordia’s play on defence was a big factor in the victory. The team finished with numerous blocks and steals, but the difference was on the boards. The Stingers outrebounded McGill 46-28.

“It started with our defence,” said head coach John Dore. “That’s what helped us on offence. We got a few steals, a few blocks and really outrebounded them.”

“For once, we were talking on defence every time,” said Stingers forward Kafil Eyitayo, who had 17 points and eight rebounds. “We were doing the little things right. Of course there were some lapses, but overall I think we came up big.”

In his first game back from injury, Desmarais finished with a game-high 19 points and picked up eight rebounds and three steals in the 29 minutes he played.

“It was the toughest five months of my life,” he said. “The knee feels good. I still got to work on my cardio and rhythm a little bit, but other than that, it feels amazing.”

Two days later the Stingers lost to the UQAM Citadins at home 71-69. A UQAM jump shot with eight seconds left in the game gave the Citadins the win. Stingers guard Jean-Andre Moussignac led the team with 18 points.

Concordia will hit the court again on Saturday, Jan. 19 at 4:00 p.m. against the first-place Bishop’s Gaiters. This is a home game at Concordia Gymnasium.

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An up-and-down week for Stingers women’s basketball

Photo by Madelayne Hajek
Photo by Madelayne Hajek

The Concordia Stingers women’s basketball team took to the court twice this past week with games against McGill and UQÀM. The team had an away game to the Martlets on Thursday night and returned home to face the Citadins on Saturday afternoon.

The Stingers went to McGill full of confidence after a highly successful Concordia-Reebok tournament over the winter break. In the tournament, they defeated the CIS number one and number five ranked teams. These results earned Concordia the number eight spot in the country.

Against the Martlets, it was a far different Concordia team. McGill was hot shooting from the behind-the-ark, sinking eight of their 15 three-point attempts compared to the Stingers’ one successful three pointer. A strong second half secured a 75-44 win for the Martlets.

“McGill came out exactly as I expected,” said Stingers head coach Keith Pruden. “They played hard, they played well, they were very aggressive and we just appeared to be surprised.”

The first quarter was closely contested for seven of the quarter’s 10 minutes. With the Stingers up by a basket, McGill went on an 8-0 scoring run in the final three minutes to secure a six point advantage after one.

In the second quarter, Concordia tried to regain momentum, but to no avail. With 2:30 to play in the quarter, the game was a one possession game as McGill’s lead was slashed down to three points. The Martlets once again got hot in the final minutes and ended up taking a 12 point lead with them into the halftime break. McGill was up 37-25.

The third quarter squashed any hopes of a Stingers comeback victory. For the first four minutes of the frame, both teams added two baskets each to their totals. Concordia would not add any more for the remainder of the quarter. The Martlets scored 18 unanswered points and grabbed a 30 point lead going into the final quarter.

“It didn’t really matter who we put on the floor,” said Pruden. “We were getting very flat performances.”

Both teams traded baskets in the fourth quarter. McGill ended Concordia’s miserable outing, winning by a final score of 75-44.

“We shot the ball extremely poorly,” Pruden said following the game. “McGill was playing a very aggressive defence. If you’re flat on one end of the court, you can’t expect to be intense at the other end of it. We were not taking care of the ball and we weren’t making sure we were getting good shots.”

Two days later, the Stingers played host to RSEQ’s first place team, the UQÀM Citadins. Concordia won the game after a great fourth quarter performance. With six and a half minutes left in the game, UQÀM had a five point lead. The maroon and gold’s strong defence denied the Citadins any more baskets. The Stingers went on a 15-0 run to end the game and win 67-57.

With the victory on Saturday, Concordia regained first place in the RSEQ conference. The team now has five wins and two losses in their seven games played this season.

Concordia will continue its three-game home stretch next Saturday, Jan. 19 when they host the last place and winless Bishop’s Gaiters. The game will start at 2 p.m. at Concordia Gymnasium.

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UQAM leaves Stingers’ hive with no honey

James Clark (22) rejects Alexandre Bernard in Concordia's five-point home victory. Photo by Navneet Pall

After Concordia’s 68-63 victory at home on Saturday afternoon, the UQAM Citadins’ locker room ranked somewhere between the dentist’s and your in-laws’ house, for places you’d want to be.

James Clark (22) rejects Alexandre Bernard in Concordia's five-point home victory. Photo by Navneet Pall

The Citadins’ second straight loss in as many games against Concordia, drew the ire of their head coach Olga Hrycak, who could be heard from the hallway berating her team for the lackluster performance.

“When we give a game away I’m not very happy, and I mean that, because we can play 10 times better than we did,” the frustrated Hrycak told reporters afterwards.

Offensive rebounding was a specific area of disdain for the fuming coach, who saw her team out-rebounded 17-9 on the offensive glass. “Concordia killed us on the offensive boards; they certainly didn’t kill us with their three-point shooting,” she said, alluding to Concordia’s ugly night beyond the arc, making only three of 18 three-point field goals. Hrycak did commend Concordia, though, for being able to prevail in another tough game. “They have that killer instinct and we just don’t right now.”

The game’s start was also delayed over two hours after Concordia’s Sheldon Moore channeled his inner Shaq in warmups and shattered the glass backboard with a dunk. Unfortunately, the RSEQ is not the NBA, and replacing the backboard was not a quick job, delaying the start of the game over two hours. “We’re not really sure why it took so long,” said Stingers coach John Dore.

While the delay affected both teams, Stingers forward Kafil Eyitayo believes the wait played a part in the Stingers slow start. “To try and get our focus back and then start the game was a little bit hard,” he said.

Concordia looked sloppy in the first quarter, trailing by six into the break. However, the Stingers went on a 10-0 run midway through the second quarter, and took a four point lead into halftime.

In almost a mirror image of last week against UQAM, though, Concordia let the Citadins back into the game by committing several fouls. The result was a 15-point lead getting whittled down to four in just over three minutes.

“It seems like every time we play UQAM we have a big stretch where we just put them on the free-throw line for five minutes straight and all they do is (score points) with no time going off the clock,” said Stingers guard Kyle Desmarais, who scored a season low seven points on the night.

The Citadins were able to hang around, trailing by six in the game’s final minute, before an Evens Laroche jump-shot sealed the victory for Concordia. Laroche led the Stingers in scoring with 17 points and has been arguably their best all-around player the past two games.

Another factor Moore’s dunk had on the game was that the net was not regulation height, after it was improperly installed when the glass was fixed. The rim was 10 feet two inches high for the game, which is two inches higher than regulation. The officials conferred before the game with both coaches and agreed that the game would be played regardless.

“It’s something both teams had to deal with,” said Dore. “But if you look at how many first foul shots were missed at that end of the floor it was a tough adjustment for the players to make.”

The video of the dunk has already made its way on to YouTube and has created some buzz.

“I had some people from Laval who had heard about it, calling me,” said Dore. “It’s good that it has created some conversation about our team.”

Dore is hoping the proper adjustments are made in time for the Stingers’ home game against McGill next Saturday.

The Stingers’ next game is on the road Friday Jan. 20 at 8 p.m. against Laval.

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