No rest for hoopsters

Daniel Bartlett

The Concordia Stingers men’s basketball team continued their winning ways last week, handing the McGill Redmen their first loss and defeating the Bishops Gaiters for the second time this season. The Stingers now sit comfortably on top of the Quebec conference with a 5-0 record, and remain the province’s only undefeated team going into the winter holidays.

Led by two-time QSFF coach of the year John Dore, the Stingers are currently on a 16-game regular season winning streak that started last January. Their only loss during that stretch came in last year’s playoffs, when the Stingers were outscored 102-90 by the UQAM Citadins in the QUBL semi-finals.

“[There are] good people on the team who are serious about school and basketball,” Dore said. “I think we’re pretty athletic.”

With the Stingers participating in the University of Victoria’s Guy Vetrie Invitational Tournament at the end of the month, Dore said his players will get a little break from practice this week before starting preparations for the event. In all, the Stingers will have between 10 and 13 more practices before Christmas Day and another one Dec. 26, two days before the start of the tournament. They will also be volunteering at Sun Youth, helping with the organization’s Christmas basket campaign.

“We don’t take off over the holidays,” said the Stingers head coach.

At the tournament, Dore will be looking to his star players when the Stingers go up against some of the country’s highest ranked universities.

Guard Benjamin Surmonte, who returned to the Stingers after working on his master’s degree at the Université de Montréal last year, said the tournament will be a “big test” for the team. Dore is also expecting a strong performance from the Stingers’ leading scorer, power forward Patrick Perrotte, whom he described as the “heart and soul of the team.”

“What I do greatest is play hard,” Perrotte said. “I have to set the pace for the [rookies].”

The only fifth-year player on the team, Perrotte leads the Quebec conference with an average of 16.2 points per game. Despite this, he only has one goal in mind.

“Usually we want to go to the nationals. This year, we want to win the nationals,” Perrotte said.

When evaluating the Stingers early success, Dore said it is impossible to ignore the presence of the Buckley brothers. Damian, the younger of the two, is busy proving that his first-team all-star rookie season wasn’t a fluke, while older brother Dwayne was honoured this week as the Stingers’ male athlete of the week.

“Damian is one of the better point guards in the country, [and] Dwayne’s a tremendous athlete,” Dore said.