Women’s Basketball: Martlet Madness

Concordia Loses to McGill, Start Season 0-3

SportsNick Pevato — Published November 20, 2015 | Updated November 20, 2015 at 10:15pm

Marilyse Roy-Viau and Richelle Gregoire had sixteen points each for the Stingers, but they could not get the victory. McGill’s Mariam Sylla led the game in scoring with 19 points and was dominant on the boards, collecting 15 rebounds.

“We are getting better every game but we didn’t come out with the win tonight,” Roy-Viau said. “We could have made some free throws and kept our temper at times, but I thought we did a good job overall.”

McGill, who finished as runners-up in last year’s National Championship game against the Windsor Lancers, are now 3-0 on the year, while Concordia has lost their first three games of the season.

The first half was all McGill as they took a 31-17 lead into halftime. However, the third quarter saw a major Concordia resurgence and the Stingers posted 21 points in a 10 minute span. Roy-Viau and Gregoire came alive in the second half, where they scored fourteen and thirteen points, respectively.

“It’s not so bad,” Roy-Viau said about losing by five points to the second best team in Canada. “But we can do better and we know that.”

The game would enter its final phase with McGill holding on to a slight 41-38 lead. The stage was set for an intense fourth quarter and both teams did not disappoint, as it was the highest scoring quarter of the game. McGill would ultimately hang on to the lead by scoring 18 points to Concordia’s 16.

“I think we did a much better job in the second half,” head coach Tenicha Gittens said. “We stuck with it and we fought. We could have succumbed to being down and being in a deficit but we didn’t.”

Positives to take from the game include exploiting physical size mismatches, according to Gittens.

For Concordia, guard Marie-Eve Martin had eight points of her own, forward Shanica Baker added seven, while Aurelle d’Anjou Drouin and Latifah Roach chipped in four and three off the bench respectively.

The temper that Roy-Viau mentioned in her post game comments was directed at the two technical fouls received by the Stingers. One for Shanica Baker, and the other for head coach Gittens for arguing a call. “I get those sometimes,” Gittens said with a slight smile.

The Stingers will next host the winless Bishop’s Gaiters on Nov. 28 at Concordia.

“It’s a big game. We want to get a win,” Gittens said. “We can’t go 0-4 into the break but obviously Bishop’s wants to get a win too. We will have to battle for four quarters.”