East II leads charge for Stingers to push past Montreal on Canada Day

The Stingers continue their dominance at home and defeat the Montreal Alliance 94-83 at the Edmonton EXPO Centre on Canada Day for their fourth win in a row. 

Sean East II once again led the Stingers' offence tonight, this time recording a season-high 35 points and connecting on five threes in another MVP-worthy performance. 

Edmonton entered tonight's matchup 5-1 since losing to the Alliance in Montreal earlier this season and were looking to avenge the loss with a dominant performance on home court.

In the first quarter, Montreal started hot, knocking down two threes and taking a 6-2 lead early, but the Stingers would capture the lead not long after. Fueled by Edmonton's 10-2 run, the Stingers led by as much as 18-8 in the opening quarter as the offence began to come alive. The Alliance's early success from three did allow them to come back, though. However, the Stingers would hold onto a slim 22-21 lead after the opening 10 minutes. 

The game remained tight in the second quarter as the two teams traded basket for basket. Eventually, Edmonton did manage to weather the storm and began taking back control of the game as the quarter progressed. The Stingers went on a 5-0 run, finished off by a Scottie Lindsey that would signal the beginning of the end for Montreal, as Edmonton opened the floodgates. Sean East II connected on two threes and tallied his 20th point of the half to take the Stingers into halftime up 48-38. 

Montreal had shot 36 per cent from the field up to that point and struggled to find consistent opportunities to score--a trend that would continue the rest of the game.

As the third quarter got underway, the Alliance were unable to break through the Stingers' 10-point lead. Edmonton remained consistent and continued to apply pressure on Montreal offensively. Sean East II added to his 20 points in the first half with six more in the third. But, it wasn't all Sean East II in this one. Scottie Lindsey and Keon Ambrose-Hylton also kept finding open shooting lanes to hit some crucial shots to keep the Stingers' lead at 65-57 heading into the final 10 minutes. 

Montreal was not prepared to go down quietly in those final minutes, though. They came out of the break swinging and tallied a small 4-0 run to make it 65-61 in the first minutes of the fourth. However, Nick Hornsby would stop the bleeding with a three that spurred a 13-2 run from Edmonton to put the game out of reach for Montreal. Up by 15 at target time, the Stingers continued to sail to the finish line and sealed their fourth consecutive win and sixth in their last seven games.

The win was one Head Coach Jordan Baker believes his team should be proud of, as they avenged their loss against Montreal earlier this season.

"[The] Guys battled," Baker said post-game. "I think we're in the lead for 37 of the 40 minutes, that's where we want to be ... We had a good start and we're sort of able to parlay that into a consistent evening."

Having yet another MVP-level performance, Sean East II continued to dominate opposing teams' defences and received some words of praise from his head coach. 

"He's pretty damn good," Baker said on Sean East II's performance post-game. "I thought defensively against Dunn-Martin in the second half, he did a great job ... he needs to shoulder that responsibility on both ends of the floor and there's nobody better."

Sean East II has now led the team in points for the third consecutive night and has recorded 25-plus points in each of the games on the homestand. After the win, East II mentioned that while the team is winning, the Stingers still want to focus on growing throughout the season.

"We're just trying to move in the right direction," East II said post-game. "You know, don't try to be too down or too high either. We're just trying to stay level-headed, and even though we're winning, we still have a lot to go through."

"We're still trying to figure each other out ... but I like the way we're heading."

The red-hot Stingers are now tied with the Calgary Surge for second in the Western Conference and are a perfect 3-0 on the homestand, setting up for a thrilling next edition of the Battle of Alberta as Calgary rolls into town. 

The Stingers will close out their four-game homestand at the EXPO Centre against the Calgary Surge on Sunday, July 6 @ 4:00 p.m MT.