Stingers Hand BlackJacks Third Straight Loss
By Matthew Winick, CEBL
Xavier Moon continued his MVP-level season, dropping 25 points, four rebounds and nine assists, as the Edmonton Stingers (3-0) blew past the Ottawa BlackJacks (1-4) 104-87 on Monday night.
The Stingers used a pair of massive scoring runs to pull away from the BlackJacks. After trailing 18-16 midway through the first quarter, Edmonton hit a barrage of three-pointers en-route to a 19-0 spurt that spanned well into the second. Then, when Ottawa cut the lead to 76-66 nearing the end of the third, the Stingers broke free with a 15-1 run to help them cruise to victory.
“It’s our defense. We talk about always trying to go on runs and we know if we get three or four stops in a row that we can definitely go on a run quickly. We’re not worried about our offense,” said Stingers’ head coach Jermaine Small after the game, “That’s our identity, and when we do that, I feel like we’re so fast and athletic that we put teams on their heels and we have lots of advantages to score.”
Unlike Edmonton’s last time out, Moon was far from the only player to make an impact on the score sheet. Jordan Baker was his consistent self, dropping 16 points and eight rebounds. Adika Peter-McNeilly was on fire from deep, splashing seven threes. Newcomer Brady Skeens was a standout as well, scoring 15 points on an efficient 7-9 shooting from the field to go along with 11 rebounds and four assists in his best game as a CEBL player.
“I’m starting to figure out where I fit in individually because of lot of these players have played together so they kind of know how it is playing with each other in their role,” said Skeens, “Today was a step in the right direction, but there’s always a way you can keep getting better.”
Nick Ward once again was the leader offensively for the BlackJacks, putting up a strong stat line of 24 points and 13 rebounds. The double-double was his fourth in five games this season.
“(Nick) is a beast, I think he’s already shown in this league that he can be unstoppable,” said BlackJacks head coach Charles Dubé-Brais, “Now the thing for Nick is about the details, it’s about making the free throws or getting the rebounds he sometimes doesn’t get.”
Despite Ward’s big game, Ottawa was buried by the two lengthy runs from the Stingers. An eye-popping stat for the BlackJacks was the lack of field goals attempted, as the team only took 59 shots compared to Edmonton’s 82. A large reason for this was Ottawa’s 31 free throws – of which it only made 58%, and 12 turnovers allowed to the feisty Stingers defense. Overall, the Stingers were the more locked in team of the two.
“It’s been a very different team from game one, to two, to now five,” said Dubé-Brais, “It’s hard to build consistency with so much change from one game to another.”
The schedule doesn’t get any easier for the BlackJacks moving forward, as they once again take on the undefeated Bandits on Saturday at 7:00 p.m. ET.
All CEBL games will be available for live streaming on the CEBL’s new OTT streaming service CEBL+, cbcsports.ca, the free CBC Gem streaming service, the CBC Sports App for iOS and android devices, and on Twitch.
