Tag: Myriam Leclerc

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Head coach Tenicha Gittens wants players to get stronger

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From left: Tenicha Gittens, Caroline Task, Myriam Leclerc, Areej Burgonio, and athletics director D’Arcy Ryan. The players received their RSEQ awards before their semi-final game. Photo by Gabe Chevalier.

Stingers hope to learn from first experience at nationals in 20 years

A year after finishing the regular season with a 4-12 record, the Concordia Stingers women’s basketball team made it all the way to the U Sports nationals this season. They qualified after losing in the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ) final against the Laval Rouge et Or, and were eliminated by the McMaster Marauders in the quarter-finals at nationals.

Despite their successful season this year, head coach Tenicha Gittens believes her team needs more depth. “Our bench has been thin all season long, so when we get [to nationals], it does matter,” Gittens said on CJLO Sports on March 11.

Injuries contributed to the short bench this season. Rookie Nelly Owusu was injured before the regular season began, and hasn’t played since, shortening the roster by one. “She was a big part of what we wanted to do,” Gittens said. “She was part of our starting line-up [in preseason games]. I think if she had been healthy throughout the season, she would have been fighting for the rookie of the year.”

Caroline Task (pictured) finished third in league scoring with 15.6 points per game. Photo by Gabe Chevalier.

Looking ahead to next season, Gittens hopes to increase the team’s roster through recruiting, but doesn’t have any official commitments right now.

“Not having Nelly, this is where it really hurt us, in this postseason,” Gittens added. “To have her in that rotation would have done wonders for us. It would have been a completely different basketball team.”

Leclerc was the third-straight Stinger to win the RSEQ rookie of the year award after Task won in 2017, and Coralie Dumont last year. Photo by Gabe Chevalier.

Gittens wants her team to get stronger physically for next season, to avoid any future injuries. “Physically, I thought we were weaker than most teams out there, so that’s something we have to get better at,” she said. “We have the talent, we’re just inexperienced. There’s ways we can get around that, and it’s just building our mind to sustain [the season].”

The Stingers benefitted from having the U Sports and RSEQ rookie of the year, Myriam Leclerc. She led the RSEQ in points and assists per game, with 18.8 and 4.6, respectively. Leclerc was also named to the U Sports second all-Canadian team, and the RSEQ’s first all-star team.

Guard Caroline Task was also named to the RSEQ first all-star team, and rookie guard Areej Burgonio made the RSEQ all-rookie team.

“[Leclerc] is just a special talent, and every once in a while, you’re lucky enough to get a talent like that in your program,” Gittens said. “She does everything. She’s a shooting point guard, she’s a passing point guard, and she gets buckets at will […]. She’s a tremendous talent and she’s raised everybody’s level of play.”

However, Gittens wants to see Leclerc get stronger over the summer, just like the rest of the team. “She’s been banged up all season long, but she’s one of those players that’s going to play through [injuries],” Gittens added. “She literally has to be broken to stop playing. We saw that in the final against Laval, when she didn’t play the second half because she physically could not go anymore […]. After that final game at nationals, she told me, ‘Coach, I’m going to be tank this summer,’ so she knows what she needs to work on.”

Burgonio (pictured) averaged 4.1 points in nearly 24 minutes per game this year. Photo by Gabe Chevalier.

At the national tournament in Toronto, the Stingers lost to McMaster 86-68 in their first game. The Marauders went onto win the national championship, beating the Rouge et Or in the final. In their consolation game against the Acadia Axewomen, the Stingers had a two-point lead after three quarters, but they ultimately lost 86-74.

“It was a disappointing end to the season,” Gittens said. “But we ended the season at nationals, so even though it seems like losing those two games made the season a wash, we have to remember we got to this point. I knew our biggest challenge going in would be the inexperience of it all, and I knew the other teams going had a taste of nationals.”

The Stingers last played in the national tournament in 1999, and started with the seventh seed as a wild card berth. About this year’s trip to nationals, Gittens said: “We enjoyed the banquet and being treated as one of the top eight teams in Canada, because they have to soak all of that in. We watched basketball and just kind of learned from the other teams that kept moving on.”

If they do get back to nationals next season, they’ll know what to do.

“The experience [at nationals] was definitely the biggest takeaway,” Gittens said. “You try to get them to buy in and believe, and kind of sell them on a dream that they can get there. Now they know the path to take.”

Main photo by Gabe Chevalier.

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Myriam Leclerc is taking on a leadership role

Growing up in Saint-Roch-de-Richelieu, Leclerc moved to Quebec City to play basketball in Cégep, and now lives in Montreal. Photo by Gabe Chevalier.

Rookie already impressing women’s basketball team

It’s clear Myriam Leclerc can score points for the Concordia Stingers women’s basketball team. In her three years playing for Cégep Ste-Foy in Quebec City, she averaged 12.7 points per game, and led the league in scoring in her final season last year. But what she brings to the Stingers is so much more than just scoring—she brings leadership.

“I need to be a leader, speak and don’t be shy to say what I think,” Leclerc said about her leadership style. “I think I’m the type of person you could talk to.”

Myriam Leclerc says she wants to be as vocal as possible on the court. Photo by Gabe Chevalier.

Leclerc is in her first season with the Stingers and when head coach Tenicha Gittens was recruiting her, she challenged her to be a vocal leader.

“She always has this poise to her, you never know what she’s thinking, and as a point guard, you have to be poised,” said Gittens about Leclerc. “But you also have to be vocal. You have to get other people involved, directing using hand gestures, and that’s something I challenge her everyday to do in practice.”

The point guard is one of six rookies on the new-look basketball team. Coming out of Cégep, Leclerc chose Concordia because she knew it’s where she belonged right away.

“When I visited here, I felt like it was my place with the girls and coaches, and the atmosphere felt really good,” Leclerc said. She enrolled in accounting because she enjoys working with numbers and business, and heard great things about the John Molson School of Business. “Everything was just a good choice for me, academically and with the team sports.”

Leclerc said she’s enjoying her first semester at Concordia, but is only taking three classes because it’s the first time she’s doing her schooling in English. It’s not the first time she’s playing basketball in an English environment—she first did that with the Canadian national team at various youth levels. Since 2014, Leclerc has been participating in training camps for the youth national team in Toronto, where she first learned how to be a leader.

“The whole experience [with Team Canada] was great, and I could speak more English than I was before, and I’m more confident with meeting people,” Leclerc said, adding that it helped her come to Concordia with knowledge of English basketball terms. Still, her teammates are there for her when she needs them.

“I know if I’m struggling [to find a word], I know the girls have my back, so I’m confident about it,” Leclerc said.

“We make a lot of fun of my accent in the locker room,” Leclerc added with a big laugh, saying it’s all in good fun. “We know it’s friendly and lovely.”

The rookie’s play on the court is nothing to laugh at. She instantly made an impact for her team, carrying the Stingers to a perfect 3-0 record and winning the MVP award at the Concordia Classic tournament. She has already been named the female Stingers athlete of the week twice this semester, once for her performance at the Concordia Classic on Oct. 9, and again on Nov. 13 for her 17-point game in the home-opener. As a point guard, Leclerc controls the play and sees the court well. “My greatest strength is my IQ, like I know when to rush [the ball up] or when not to,” Leclerc said.

“She’s a floor general and understands the game,” Gittens said. “She can score freely and get other people involved. She creates [chances] for other people and creates them for herself, and brings a calmness to the team.”

WBasketball_23_HEwen8 – Leclerc drives the basket against the Bishop’s Gaiters on Nov. 24. Photo by Hannah Ewen.

Gittens is benefitting from having a player like Leclerc. A year after going 4-12 and missing the playoffs, the Stingers went 9-1 in the preseason and sit in second place in the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ) with a 3-1 record. Leclerc is averaging a team-high 17.8 points, 3.8 assists and 5.8 rebounds per game. But this doesn’t come as a surprise to Gittens.

“If anyone followed her throughout her Cégep career and saw what she did on the court with the team she had, then coming here with [the players we have], then it’s no surprise to what she’s done,” Gittens said.

Leclerc credits the team’s success to a good atmosphere. “We’re always together and bonding, we’re a loud team and we’ve just had so much fun so far this year” Leclerc said. “We just like each other, there’s no one [girl] you like more than any other. We’re just like a family with a bunch of sisters and we have each others’s backs.”

The first-year grew up in Saint-Roch-de-Richelieu, a municipality of over 2,000 people close to 80 kilometres east of the Loyola campus. There, she started playing basketball at eight years old, before moving to Quebec City for Cégep. Now in Montreal, she’s closer to her family.

Leclerc said her biggest role models growing up were her parents, Rosanne and Bruno, who were always there for her. “They worked so hard for me and pushed me,” Leclerc said. “When I was not knowing what to do or didn’t know if I wanted to continue playing basketball, they were there for me and kept pushing me.”

The rookie point guard said there were times, such as between high school and Cégep, when she wondered if it was worth pursuing basketball. “But for me, it wasn’t an option to stop—I needed to play basketball.”

Luckily for the Stingers, Leclerc has continued playing until now, and wants to help her team succeed. “We want to be the provincial champions for sure. We have the team to do it, we just need to keep pushing and get better every day.”

Main photo Gabe Chevalier.

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Stingers complete home sweep for undefeated weekend

With three wins this season, the women’s team have one less than last season. Photo by Hannah Ewen.

Basketball teams combine for 4-0 record in games versus McGill and Bishop’s

The Concordia Stingers basketball teams swept the Bishop’s Gaiters Saturday afternoon at the Concordia Gym, as the women won 72-52 and the men won 105-91.

Stingers guard Caroline Task scored a game-high 20 points in the win. Photo by Hannah Ewen.
Women’s game

The Stingers women’s team was in a battle against the Gaiters. Bishop’s came into the game with a 1-2 record, but didn’t go easy on the Stingers.

The game was tied at 17 by the end of a competitive first quarter. Both defences were playing well, forcing shooters to settle for contested and difficult shots. The second quarter was quite similar, but the Stingers went into the halftime break up 34-33.

The third quarter was much sharper for both teams, as points were being scored almost at ease. Stingers guard Areej Burgonio was not a starter, but made her impact as she was the one that sparked the Stingers run and had control of the offence. Her ball handling and quickness really stood out. With six seconds left in the third quarter, she started with the ball in the Stingers’s end, and went coast-to-coast to finish it off with a beautiful spin and lay-up at the buzzer.

After the back-and-forth game, the Singers took the momentum they had from that play and pulled away in the fourth quarter. The Stingers’s 72-52 win improved their record to 3-1.

Stingers point guard Myriam Leclerc said they turned it around in the second half. “We weren’t really ourselves in the first half,” Leclerc said. “We were not showing our true identity. In the second half, we came out strong and that is why we won by 20.”

Moving forward, the Stingers want to continue their current three-game winning streak. “We want to end the first half of the season with a [win] so we just have to work hard at practice and continue to get better,” Leclerc added.

Guard Adrian Armstrong made 4/7 three-point shots in the game. Photo by Hannah Ewen.
Men’s game

The men’s team was almost in full control of the game leading up to their victory. Despite missing multiple opportunities early in the game, they were up by seven after the first quarter. Guard Adrian Armstrong started the game with a hot hand, hitting three three-point shots to start the first quarter—and making it look easy. He finished the game with 22 points, hitting nine of his 14 field-goal attempts.

Going into the fourth quarter, the Stingers led by 17 points and it looked all but over. The Gaiters went on a run and, at one point, cut the Stingers lead to only four points. That was as close as they would get, though, as Concordia hit a few key three-pointers and came away with a 105-91 win. Like the women’s team, the men also hold a 3-1 record.

Stingers guard Cedrick Coriolan liked how they played, despite the fourth-quarter lapse. “We stuck to the game-plan and played really hard for pretty much the whole game,” he said. “We had a little bit of a lapse in the fourth quarter, but everybody stuck to what they had to do and we came up with the win which was the objective.”  

The men’s and women’s team host the UQAM Citadins on Dec. 1 for their final game before the winter break.

Main photo by Hannah Ewen.

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Stingers bring home two wins against McGill

Ricardo Monge (#15) fights for the ball in the game against the McGill Redmen on Nov. 22. Photo by Gabe Chevalier.

Basketball teams both 2-1 on the season

Both Concordia Stingers basketball teams beat McGill Thursday night at the Love Competition Hall in downtown Montreal. The women’s team won 77-63, while the men avenged their loss in last year’s final with a 87-81 win.

The Stingers have now won two-straight games after their opening loss against Laval. Photo by Gabe Chevalier.
Women’s Game

After losing their first game of the season earlier this month, the Stingers have now won two consecutive games.

The Stingers’s defence had to set up strong early in the game. The team allowed only six points in the second quarter, and led 46-23 at halftime. However, the Martlets scored 40 points in the last 20 minutes of play to give a good battle to the Stingers.

“I think we did a good job in general,” said Stingers head coach Tenicha Gittens. “There are still things we need to be tightening up defensively and fix. In the second half, a lot of their shooters got loose, and that’s just us having a mental lapse.”

First-year point guard Myriam Leclerc carried her team, registering 24 points, four assists, and four steals. Leclerc now has 59 points in three games played this season, giving her an average of 19.7 points per game.

According to Gittens, Leclerc takes pressure off her teammates. “She’s our floor general,” Gittens said. The term “floor general” in basketball is used to describe a player that brings leadership by dictating the offence. “As she goes, we go. When she’s playing well, it makes it easier for girls like [guard] Caroline Task to do what she has to do. [Forward] Coralie Dumont comes in and does what she does.”

Leclerc said the trust between the players helped her against the Martlets. “If there’s something, we let each other know,” Leclerc said. “We’re confident when we play and it helps me to know when to shoot.”

The Martlets’s crowd was loud and intense, at times making it hard for the players to hear each other, but the Stingers expected that. “We were prepared the same way we did for the other games,” Leclerc said. “We knew the crowd would be loud, but it’s an atmosphere we love to play in.”

With this win, the Stingers are now in second place in the RSEQ standings, behind the Université Laval Rouge et Or.

Men’s Game

The Stingers got back on the win column against the Redmen after losing their last game 85-68 on Nov. 15 against the Université de Québec à Montréal Citadins.

“It was that kind of game where I wanted to see how we were going to respond,” said Stingers head coach Rastko Popovic, who wanted a bounce-back effort from the loss. “We had some injuries, and now Sami Ghandour was back [for that game]. We didn’t have a great start, but I think we showed a lot of passion and we didn’t quit.”

The Stingers lost to the Redmen last March in the RSEQ final, and it was the first meeting since. Photo by Gabe Chevalier.

In his first game back from an injury, Ghandour finished with nine points and nine rebounds. The Stingers scored 30 of the 47 points registered in the third quarter. Popovic said the Stingers’s defence made the difference in the second half.

“They turned the ball over, which allowed us better opportunities for easier shots, and made their defence scramble,” said Popovic about his defence.

Popovic added that his players really improved once they took the lead.

“We weren’t necessarily great in the first quarter,” Popovic said. “We missed some shots, and that’s why I think we were trailing that way. However, we really played better and consistent after.”

Stingers forward Olivier Simon led his team with 32 points, a career-high. He also finished the game with seven rebounds in 30 minutes of play. The forward credited his teammates for his performance.

“Those are team points,” Simon said. “We moved the ball well, and we knew what to do to win. Everyone contributed, so it’s a great team win.”

Simon said early wins in the season like this prove to the team what they are capable of. “We had a lot of difficulties against the Redmen in the last couple of years,” he said. “It’s a good team, but also a rival. It helps to build some confidence for the next games when we’ll face similar situations.”

Both teams play their next game on Nov. 24 against the Bishop’s Gaiters at the Concordia Gym. The women play at 2 p.m., and the men’s game is at 4 p.m.

Main photo by Gabe Chevalier.

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Stingers teams both win Concordia Classic tournament

The Stingers women’s basketball team went undefeated to win the Concordia Classic. Photo by Gabe Chevalier.

Myriam Leclerc and Adrian Armstrong won tournament MVPs

For basketball fans, what better way to kick off Thanksgiving weekend than with the Concordia Classic tournament? Teams from all over Canada, including Regina, Newfoundland and P.E.I. came to participate.

Both the men’s and women’s Concordia Stingers won the tournament. The women’s team won all three of their games, while the men had a 2-1 record before Anthony Sanogo’s buzzer-beater in their final game captured the tournament win.

Women’s team

The women’s team opened the tournament against the Memorial University Seahawks on Oct. 5. They jumped out of the gate, starting the quarter with tenacious defence, allowing only one field goal in the opening six minutes of play. Combined with their ball movement, tenacious rebounding and fast break attack, the Stingers built a 15-point lead after the first quarter.

The second quarter remained the same as Concordia built on their first-quarter success. They extended their advantage to an 18-point lead with a 37-19 score at halftime.

Rookie point guard Myriam Leclerc won the tournament MVP. Photo by Gabe Chevalier.

Halfway through the third quarter, the Stingers took a 24-point lead, forcing the Seahawks to call a timeout. Memorial began to find their footing as their defence forced the Stingers’s ball movement and fast break offence into stagnant half court sets. Memorial shot 50 per cent from the field in the third. Led by the game-leading scorer Sydney Stewart, she finished the third quarter on a three-point play to bring the Seahawks within 11 points.

The fourth quarter was the lowest-scoring quarter of the game as both teams struggled to create offence. Stingers guards Myriam Leclerc and Coralie Dumont scored 10 of the team’s 12 fourth-quarter points to hold off the Seahawks’s late rally, and hold on to a 71-58 victory.

“At the end of the day, you’ve got to get the [win],”said Stingers head coach Tenicha Gittens. “They want to blow everybody out by 20; you’re not going to smack teams every night, you’re going to have to work for those wins.”

For coach Gittens, these are the types of games that are important for the growth of her team. “It was a good game for us because there was a storm to weather. They went on a run, basketball is a game of runs,” she said. “It was just about getting a stop and being disciplined.”

Men’s team

The men played the Regina Rams on opening night, winning 82-63. The game was more competitive than the final score indicates.

The tone was set in the first quarter by Stingers guard Adrian Armstrong, who made his first three attempts from beyond the three-point line. The Stingers connected on 5/12 from three-point range in the first, leading to their highest-scoring quarter of the game and an early 10-point lead.

Halfway through the second, the Stingers had a 14-point lead, but Regina’s full-court press began giving the Stingers problems. Turnovers became the story of the second quarter, as the Stingers gave up the ball six times compared to the Rams’s two. Regina had cut the host’s lead to six, but Sanogo came off the bench to score seven points in the quarter, giving the Stingers a 40-31 lead at halftime.

Regina cut the lead to five points with a bucket and an assist by Myles Hamilton in the third quarter. Armstrong continued to not only shoot the ball well, but also create plays for his teammates. By the end of the third, Concordia outscored Regina by eight to take a 17-point lead. The fourth quarter was more of the same, with Regina unable to cut the lead under 10. With two double-digit scorers and five other players scoring at least eight points, the Stingers held on for an impressive 19-point victory.

Stingers head coach Rastko Popovic praised his team’s resilience as they dealt with injuries to three of their starters.

“I thought a lot of guys that came in did a good job; a lot of young guys played,” Popovic said. “The fact that we can still win by 20 without some of our top guys shows the depth of our team.”

Armstrong had nothing but praise for his coach. “Coach Popovic always comes through with a great game plan, it’s been like that since my first year,” he said. “If anything goes wrong, just follow the game plan.”

Main photo by Gabe Chevalier. 

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