Sporting Madness

I learned this morning that football tight end Scott Stinson (famed not only for his size and great receiving numbers, but also for being one of the few athletes to crack the front page of the Journal , even in less than ideal circumstances) has officially joined the men's basketball team. There had been some rumours floating around about this earlier, but it's confirmed now: he's on the official roster and may play as early as their weekend games against Brock and Guelph. This might work out well for the team. One of the big problems so far has been their lack of depth in the frontcourt positions; in fact, as I pointed out in my story on last weekend's games, a lot of their success came when they went to a three-guard lineup. Especially with Jon Ogden not playing (he played in the pre-season, but isn't with the team at the moment), there aren't a lot of frontcourt options on this team, and Stinson's addition should significantly help with that. These G...

I learned just this afternoon that Teddi Firmi , the star point guard for the Queen's women's basketball team and last year's OUA East Defensive Player of the Year ["Women's teams exit early," myself, Queen's Journal , February 29, 2008], has decided to quit basketball and join the women's rugby team. She'll be playing her first match with them tomorrow on the road against the McMaster Marauders. This is a big loss for the basketball team. Firmi was their starting point guard last year, and demonstrated a tremendous ability to control the flow of the game and find the open player. She could score as well, but her greatest talent was on defence, where she was an almost-unparalled stopper. The team has a lot of promising young players, though, so it will be interesting to see if any of them can step up and fill her shoes. It's going to be a very different women's hoops squad this year, as they've lost their best defensive player in Firmi...

The 8-11 women's team, fresh off an upset of the 13-6 Laurentian Voyageurs, almost made it two in a row against the OUA East-leading York Lions (16-3 heading in to tonight's game), but came up just short, losing 71-66 in overtime. Queen's trailed 29-21 at the half, but outscored York 22-14 in the third and held them even in the fourth to force the extra frame. It really didn't need to go that far, though. With less than a minute to go and the score knotted at 60, Queen's star forward Sarah Barnes hauled down a defensive rebound and started a fast break, but point guard Teddi Firmi missed a tightly contested layup that could have given the Gaels the lead. On the ensuing Lions drive, Queen's forward Anne Murphy fouled York's Emily Van Hoof, who led York with 21points on the night. Van Hoof went to the line, but missed both shots, perhaps thrown off by the noise from the stands. They were the only foul shots she missed all night in a 9-for-11 effort from the li...

Just got back from the Queen's - Ottawa basketball games, which saw some surprising developments. The first game saw the Gee-Gees pick up only their second win of the season (and the other one was against RMC, so that hardly counts) against the 7-10 Gaels. Queen's had shown some signs of turning their poor season around lately after reeling off a couple of wins last weekend, but they left Ottawa in the game for far too long, and it eventually cost them. The first half was pretty even throughout, with neither team able to build too much momentum. Queen's took a slim 33-32 lead into the break, but the Gaels were outscored 18-10 in the third and weren't able to make up the lost ground. Ottawa took a 12-point lead with 90 seconds left on a Katie Laurier field goal, but Gaels Sarah Barnes and Christine Wallace hit back-to-back threes to bring Queen's within six. That was as close as they got, though, and the game finished 68-63 for the Gee-Gees. There were both upsides a...