Stingers earn gutsy win over Blackjacks

Xavier Moon led Edmonton with 24 points, nine assists, four rebounds and three steals, while Jordan Baker recorded his first double-double of the Summer Series with 20 points, 14 rebounds, five assists and four steals to help the Stingers to a 89-82 victory, Monday night at the Meridian Centre.

Phil Scrubb led Ottawa with 20 points, five assists and five steals in a losing cause. Edmonton improves to 1-1 in the Summer Series, while Ottawa falls to 0-2.

“We came out with a lot of energy, especially defensively we wanted to make it tough on them every possession,” said Moon. “We were the aggressor from start to finish. We had a bit of a lull in the third quarter, but we picked it back up and we had a bunch of guys hit big shots for us and we were able to take control back.”

The Stingers led the entire first half, but Ottawa continued to chip away at the Stingers lead and took their first lead of the game just over two minutes into the third quarter after Scrubb hit one of his four treys of the game.

The Blackjacks led for the rest of the third quarter, but a big bucket in the dying seconds of the third quarter by veteran power forward Travis Daniels cut the Blackjacks lead to just 60-58 entering the third quarter.

Edmonton was playing their second game in just over 24 hours, but they didn’t let fatigue set in and their veteran core led the way in the team’s first win of the Summer Series. Adika Peter-McNeilly hit a clutch three-pointer to give Edmonton the lead in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter, then Mathieu Kamba came up with a big block on then finished with a thunderous dunk in transition for two of his 14 points to give Edmonton a 69-67 lead early in the fourth quarter.

Moon’s dynamic offensive play continued with back-to-back threes Baker came up with a big rebound and finish under the basket to cap off a nice run for Edmonton as they took a 80-72 lead heading into the Elam Ending.

“We told ourselves we were going to play the whole fourth quarter as the Elam Ending,” said Small. “Every possession needed to count and we made shots when we needed it most. It was a real blue-collar, hard fought win.”

Both Moon and Kamba got off to hot shooting starts, but cooled off to start the second half, but in the clutch both veterans came up big. Moon split two defenders and popped a teardrop to give Edmonton an 84-79 lead.

Kamba then came through with two huge shots, including the game-winning three-pointer to seal the win.

“We came out hungry and we played with urgency,” said Small. “We stayed on each other and held each other accountable. Yesterday, I felt we played like it was Game 1, and today we played like it was a Game 7. When we play with that kind of mentality, we get results and we got rewarded.”

Edmonton (1-1) will now face the Hamilton Honey Badgers (1-1) on Wednesday July 29 at 5 p.m. MT.

• Rookies Kareem South and Sascha Kappos played some valuable minutes off the bench for Edmonton.
• Kappos recorded two points, one rebound, one block and a steal in 11 minutes of action.
• Moon, Kamba and Baker all played over 30 minutes for the Stingers in the win.
• The Stingers dominated Ottawa down low outscoring the Blackjacks 42-28 in the paint.