CIS women's basketball Tuesday roundup: Concordia, McGill off to RSEQ final

MONTREAL - Kaylah Barrett and the Concordia Stingers stormed back from a 17-point deficit to beat the Bishop’s Gaiters 65-53 in the RSEQ women’s university basketball semifinal at Concordia gym in Montreal on Tuesday night.

The Stingers were dismal early on, especially on defence, and found themselves down 24-7 after the first quarter of play.

By halftime, a scrappy Concordia team was clawing its way back into the game. The score was 31-27 for the Gaiters who were losing momentum with every minute that ticked off the clock.

Less than two minutes into the third frame, Concordia took over the lead.

“We started to play defensively,” explained head coach Keith Pruden. “The players started to play aggressive defence and that turned into easy offensive points. I’m really proud of how tough we played.”

The Stingers had a 48-40 lead after three quarters and were in control the rest of the game.

RSEQ MVP Kaylah Barrett was exceptional, prompting the pro-Concordia crowd to break into chants of “MVP, MVP, MVP” on several occasions. With 21 points, she was the leading scorer in the game. She also had 11 rebounds, five assists and a block.

Stinger second-year centre Tina Mpondani had a breakout game. She had 15 points and 12 rebounds.

“Tina was crucial to our success tonight,” Pruden said. “She had the best game of her university career. She was outstanding.”

Concordia will meet the Martlets at McGill in the Quebec championship game on Friday at 7 p.m. The Martlets defeated the UQAM Citadins 63-56 in the other Quebec semifinal game.

Source: Concordia Sports Info

MONTREAL - Anneth Him-Lazarenko, a native of Panama City, scored 13 points and veteran Natalie Larocque of Quebec City came off the bench to add nine points along with six rebounds as top-seeded McGill escaped with a surprisingly hard-fought 63-56 victory in a women's basketball sudden-death semifinal at Love Competition Hall, Tuesday night.

“Larocque was probably the story (of the game) for me,” said Ryan Thorne, of the second year transfer out of Northern Michigan University who is in her fifth year of eligibility. “She didn’t get a whole heap of points but her baskets were timely. She attacked, was aggressive and played like she didn’t want to lose what could’ve been her last game in a McGill uniform.”

Emie Simard of Varennes, Que., led the Citadins with a game-high 18 points and teammate Michelle Auger-Bellemare of Victoriaville, Que., had 15.

The Martlets had a huge 40-25 edge in rebounding but committed 17 turnovers, which kept the Citadins in the game.

McGill took an early lead, held a 19-14 advantage after the opening quarter and appeared to be in total control until the second half, when UQAM came out firing and took their first lead of the game, at 39-37, with was six minutes remaining in the third quarter.

The game stayed close until Marie-Eve Martin hit a three-pointer to put the Martlets ahead 57-48 with just under three minutes remaining in the game. She finished with seven points and a game-high seven rebounds.

Once again it was McGill’s depth that proved to be the difference as they got 27 points from the subs, compared to only six by the Citadins.

“The reality is that UQAM is a really good team,” said Thorne, who was just named coach of the year in the RSEQ conference. “They have as good a starting five as any team in the conference but down the stretch they tire and run into foul trouble because they play with pretty much five or six players the whole game, so that is where they began to unravel.

“They had a great third quarter (outscoring us 16-10), where they attacked us like crazy. But we weathered the storm and responded so I was pretty happy with that.”

The Martlets shot 36 per cent from the field, 30 from the arc and 75 from the foul-line, compared to UQAM, which shot 37, 23 and 68 per cent, respectively.

McGill advances to the RSEQ league championship game on Friday at 7 p.m. They will host No.2-seeded Concordia, which rallied from an early 24-7 deficit in the other semifinal to defeat visiting Bishop's 65-53. McGill and Concordia split their four games this season with the Stingers outscoring the Martlets by a slight 237-232 margin.

Source: McGill Sports Info