Women’s Basketball: Fast Break

Stingers Beat UQAM 64-51 in Season Finale

SportsHarrison-Milo Rahajason — Published March 6, 2016 | Updated March 7, 2016 at 1:20am

Four of the Stingers starting players recorded points in double figures but it was Gregoire who stood out the most.

She was the game’s top scorer with a total of 15 points while converting 46 per cent of her field goals, and went 1-3 from the free throw line.

Gregoire’s offensive output was a hair below her season’s average of 15.1 points per game, but her 46 per cent field goal percentage stands above her season average of 41%.

She also led the team with seven rebounds. Despite those solid numbers, her largest contribution came on the fast break, evidenced by her team-high six defensive rebounds.

“Well, after the games if I don’t rebound, I get in trouble. So I try to rebound,” she said with a laugh.

She was pushing the ball and distributing it to her teammates in transition, allowing for easy points. They had 19 total fast break opportunities Thursday evening, converting 14 of them including one 3-point play.

“It’s the end of the season and we’re a little more focused on the goal,” said Gregoire. “We’re in shape, so we’re running. We know that to we have to build momentum offensively from defence. So if you push it on defence, buckets will come.”

“We work on that for all games,” said Stingers head coach Tenicha Gittens. “But we placed an emphasis on it this game. It has been a while since we’ve played, so we want to make sure we get stops defensively. When we get stops defensively, we push the ball. We want to get easy points, easy transition buckets. We did a good job with that today.”

The Stingers will now begin their preparations for the playoffs. They will meet a McGill Martlets team that they have not had any success with this season.

They won none of their four regular season meetings, the closest of which was a two point double-overtime loss at McGill.

“We’re always learning,” said freshman guard Latifah Roach. “We know that teams are always changing, so we try to stay on top of that.”

Their semi-final meeting with the Martlets will tip off at 6:00 p.m. next Thursday, March 10 at McGill.