A Shaky Performance

Stingers Squeeze by Winless Gaiters

SportsYacine Bouhali — Published January 20, 2013

Ranked among the best teams in the country, Concordia’s women’s basketball team (5-2) were supposed to breeze by the Bishop’s Gaiters (0-7) Saturday afternoon at the Concordia Gym. Instead, an expected blowout turned into a narrow escape.

“I’m not happy with our performance today,” said Stingers head coach Keith Pruden. “We did some good things in the first half but we were very sloppy in the second half.”

The Stingers seemed headed for an easy win as they went into the locker room leading by 16 points at the half.

With his team leading comfortably, Pruden took the risky decision to pull his star player, guard Kaylah Barrett, from the game after she suffered an injury in the second quarter.

That’s when things got complicated for Concordia.

The Stingers weren’t as efficient without their leader and the Gaiters took advantage of it, outscoring Concordia 14-13 in the third quarter before cutting the deficit to just eight points in the game’s dying seconds.

Fortunately for the Stingers, their solid first half allowed them to build just a large enough lead to hold onto an important win in the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec conference.

“Our defensive intensity and offensive execution just wasn’t there in the second half,” said Pruden. “We still have things to work on, but I’ll take the win.”

The Stingers take on the McGill Martlets next in a battle for first place in the RSEQ. Concordia will have the chance to exact revenge on their cross-town rivals, who humiliated them 76-45 two weeks ago.

“We’re all looking forward to play McGill,” said first-year guard Tamara Pinard-Devos. “We’re gonna make sure that what happened last time was just a misstep and this time, we will win.”

The rematch is set for this Thursday at the Concordia Gym. Tipoff is at 6 p.m.