Running On Empty

Stingers Offence Fizzles in Season Opener

SportsJulian McKenzie — Published November 11, 2013 | Updated November 12, 2013 at 3:16am

That was the case for the Concordia women’s basketball team in their season opener last Thursday, a game in which fourth-year guard Kaylah Barrett, the provincial conference MVP for the last two years, scored just four points as the Stingers fell 53-42 to the Université du Québec à Montréal Citadins.

Last season, the Stingers beat UQAM in all five of their matchups, including a 65-62 win in the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec Conference semifinals.

But Barrett wasn’t the only Stinger struggling to find the basket on Thursday.

Fifth-year point guard Ashley Clarke also had a performance to forget, making only one of her 11 attempts.

As a team, the Stingers didn’t do much better, making just 17 of their 56 shooting attempts and scoring only 13 points in the second half.

“We are a fairly-high powered offence for CIS women’s basketball, and to score 13 points in the second half is kind of a kick in the face,” said Concordia’s head coach Keith Pruden, who was visibly upset at the end of the game.

“It’s not good enough to beat anybody.”

Leading 29-21 at halftime a fierce Stingers offence disappeared come the second half, scoring only eight points in the third period and just five in the last one—all while giving up 32 points to the Citadins in that span.

“We completely went away from our gameplan,” said Pruden.

Pruden did have at least one thing to be happy about: the performance of sophomore forward Marilyse Roy-Viau.

Despite nursing a foot injury, Roy-Viau was on the court for 31 minutes and led the team in scoring with 18 points while also recovering five rebounds.

“She’s playing in a lot of pain right now, she has a bad foot,” said Pruden.

“She was probably the bright spot. She did some good things defensively as well.”

But Pruden says having one bright spot isn’t necessarily something to be desired.

“Sometimes as a group, when one person is having a good game, we have a bunch of other people who kind of sit back and watch, and there was a little bit of that today,” he said.

The Stingers will look to rebound from their season-opening loss this Saturday, when they’ll invite the Bishop’s Gaiters to the Concordia Gym for their home opener. Tip-off is at 2 p.m.