Montmorency Nomades headed for national collegiate basketball tournament

In the men’s division, the Nomades, who had finished third in regular season play put on a flawless performance at Vanier College as they easily downed John Abbott College 94-77 and outlasted Champlain St-Lambert 77-74, before taking on Dawson in the finals, a collegiate basketball powerhouse that had lost only two games all year, neither of them to Montmorency.

But Coach Alexandre Perno’s boys weren’t daunted by the task ahead of them in the championship game. Intimidated neither by Dawson’s near-perfect season record nor by the Montreal College’s domination of them in previous games, the Laval side showed great composure from the start, taking the play to Dawson, leaving the court at half time with a 41-33 lead.

“Our win came as a surprise to the league, considering we had lost to Dawson by 30 points just a few weeks ago,” coach Perno told Courrier Laval. “But we came up with a game plan that was effective against their type of team. Our boys followed it to the limit, and that’s why we’re on our way to the national championship,” the coach explained.

The Nomades were led to victory by Stephan-Olivier Bouchard, named the championship game’s MVP and Francis-Cedric Martel, selected the tournament’s best player.

Now it’s on to Champlain College in St-Lambert this coming weekend, for the Canadian championships, March 13, 14, 15, where the Nomades will try to win their second national title in three years.

“We’ll be playing against teams whose average age is considerably higher than ours, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have the national title in our sights,” says coach Perno. “I think we have the team to do it. Once again it comes down to having an effective game plan and executing it,” he concludes.

Like the Nomades boys, the girls won their first two games, beating Champlain 73-64 and Sainte-Foy 80-72, but came up short against a Vanier team that would not go down despite a strong effort from the Laval side. The score at the final buzzer was Vanier 66, Montmorency 60. Although she could not prevent the loss, Alix Vandal nonetheless distinguished herself with an outstanding performance.