Spartans News

Celebrating our departing Grade 12s from the Senior Girls Basketball Spartans:

In what may well turn out to be the final basketball action of the 2023-24 season, your Spartans travelled to Centennial Regional High School to take part in the annual MacLeod Provincial Tournament. The MacLeod is as storied a tournament as there is, with the inaugural event taking place way back in 1953. 71 years ago! In all that time, Stanstead College has emerged as champions four times (2017-2019, and again last year in 2023). It was a hard tournament to win. But as we’ve said before, worthwhile things are never easy.

The last RSEQ game of the year, against Le Salesien on their home floor, was one of those games I just don’t like that much, i.e. non-stop full court pressure with loose reffing. Which means our ballhandlers are constantly being ridden downcourt and there is body contact on every single play. Which means every time you have the ball you have two to four hands reaching in to grab it from you with no fear of a foul (in fact, Clara’s father spent most of the game yelling “Hands! Hands!” from the sideline). Which means the game is a haphazard track meet where everything is rushed and improvised and messy, the way basketball is probably played in prison. And the main problem with prison basketball is that you don’t learn very much in terms of technique or strategy. It’s a battle of athleticism. It’s roller derby.

This past weekend, your Stanstead College Spartans travelled to St-Jean-sur-Richelieu to participate in the first of our two most important events of the year, the 2024 Bailly Small Schools Provincial Tournament. As defending champions, and ranked #1 going into the tourney, we were looking to take care of business and bring the championship plaque back home.  

I can’t say for sure how all of their games have gone this season, but I’m pretty sure that La Ruche, undefeated and undisputed league leaders in RSEQ D3 this season, haven’t had many games as tough as their game against your Stanstead Spartans last Wednesday.

The halftime buzzer goes. The players trudge to the bench, heads down, shoulders slumped. Demoralized. I can’t exactly remember the score, but it was ugly. 36-11 or something like that. It felt like more. Laruche’s full-court press was debilitating, no let-up at all, never letting us get comfortable on offence, and their fast break was killing us. Even if we got a couple bodies back in transition, they would stay in fifth gear, attack downhill and finish anyway, contested or not. Even when we forced them to play in the half court, they dropped threes like it was nothing. They were fast, athletic, deep, they were shooting well, and they were on their home floor. Laruche was rolling. Stanstead was not going to win this game.

Saturday, December 2, 2023, the CAIS Tournament in Winnipeg. Not only was that the last basketball game your Spartans played before this past Thursday’s RSEQ trip to Le Boise in Victoriaville; that was also the last day the whole team even practiced together. Immediately upon their return from CAIS, our Grade 12s started preparing for exams, i.e. no athletics, just studying.