Women’s Basketball: Semi-Final Exit

Stingers See Season End With 85-60 Loss to McGill in RSEQ Final 4 Semi-Final

SportsHarrison-Milo Rahajason — Published March 12, 2016 | Updated March 12, 2016 at 6:04am

“Part of the gameplan was dictating tempo and dictating play,” said head coach Tenicha Gittens. “We rattled them, we were able to make them very uncomfortable.”

Unfortunately, McGill broke away from the Stingers, scoring 26 points and earning an 85-60 win, giving them a berth in the Réseau du Sport Etudiant du Quebec Final 4 final against the Laval Rouge et Or on Saturday evening.

The Stingers were effective on offence and were strong defensively in the first two quarters of the ballgame. They made almost 67 per cent of their three-pointers, well above their season average of 31 per cent.

Concordia also denied McGill the ball. Whenever the Martlets missed a shot, a Stinger defender would be ready to scoop it up, not letting the taller Martlet players get their hands on an offensive rebound.

Despite this, the Stingers couldn’t completely neutralize the size advantage that the McGill Martlets had over their entire lineup. Most of the damage came from Martlets centre Alex Kiss-Rusk who had 17 points at halftime.

“We knew going in that we had to take her out of the game,” said Gittens. “Get her off of her spot, her block where she’s supposed to be.

“She’s six foot four. We had to make her uncomfortable.”

At the beginning of the first quarter, Kiss-Rusk began to slip through the defence and she continued for the rest of the game. The heavy pressure that the Stingers used when she would call for the ball in the post was no longer happening. She was often only being defended by one player, which led to far too many easy layups for her. Kiss-Rusk also held her own defensively, finishing the game with eight blocked shots.

Kiss-Rusk scored eight of McGill’s 26 points in the third quarter, in comparison to Concordia, who only scored 15. The six-foot-four centre ended the game with 31 points. Not to be outdone, teammate Myriam Sylla had 22 points in McGill’s victory.

“We played a great first half, but in the second half we did not play together,” said Gregoire.

“We didn’t follow the gameplan, and it resulted in them just running on us. In the second half, [Kiss-Rusk and Sylla’s] posts were destroying it. And we weren’t stopping them.”

As the final buzzer sounded, the Stingers’ season ended, despite their efforts against a tough opponent on home court.

“I think Concordia definitely has big chances for next year,” said Stingers guard Marie-Eve Martin. “This was a transition year at Concordia, but there are definitely great things coming up.”