June 5, 2024
The Ottawa Blacks end their losing skid and earn their first win against Montreal
Fresh off their first win of the season, Montreal was looking to build against the only team in the CEBL yet to find themselves on the winning end of the scoreboard – the Ottawa Blackjacks.
The Alliance had played a dominant game their last time out, against a Brampton Honey Badgers team that was on a bit of a slide – and have generally outplayed their opponents but struggled mightily to put games away. Ottawa though, had a few tricks up their sleeves.
See Also: Montreal Alliance defeat the Brampton Honey Badgers
Montreal’s record doesn’t reflect the teams play and tonight’s game would further reflect that. For the fourth consecutive game, the Alliance lead at half time and took a lead into the Target Score period – yet have only emerged with a single victory so far for their efforts.
The action had been going back and fourth and was for the most part, tightly contested throughout the match-up. Alain Louis was elemental in quarter-backing his squads offensive game, and new signing Freddy Ibrahim showed some flashes of brilliance and why the Alliance had inked him to a deal a day prior. It was quite a CEBL debut for the Jordanian international who will surely help the Alliance this season.
Montreal had been the better squad in every aspect of the play – bar one crucial criteria; turnovers.
The Alliance have lead the league in turn overs this season, and that was again the key to the game tonight. Montreal had a massive twenty giveaways tonight against the Blackjacks – something that head coach Derrick Alston Sr. was far from pleased about.
“We’re playing for something this year,” said Alston Sr., alluding to the fact his team will be Championship Weekend hosts. “We play for something every year, but it’s a step up this year and we can’t baby this group. We’ve got to be brutally honest and brutally honest right away. Because, if not, they think that stuff is okay. And that’s not okay. I let them know in the locker room that’s not okay. We can’t have our two bigs and our star player with 17 turnovers out of our 20. That’s unacceptable.”
Needing just a single point for the victory, Chris Smith gets called for a travel on a play that really should have put the game away and earned Montreal their second win on the season. Instead, the play went the other way, and the Blackjacks made sure to sink their basket when a bad pass from Elijeh Ifejeh put the ball directly into the hands of Isaih Moore under the basket, and he made no mistake in sinking it to put the game away. In doing so, Ottawa gets their first win of the season and improves to a 1 and 4 record.
Chris Smith had a strong game offensively, putting up 19 points and 12 rebounds, but he also gave up nine turnovers. For the Alliance to be better – they need Smith to continue being the offensive stalwart that he is, and reel in the turnovers.
“If feels great to get the monkey off our back,” said Ottawa head coach James Derouin. “We’ve been close, especially our last two games, so, to get one on the road, we’ve been on the road for three of our first four games as well, it feels great.”
Read More:
>> Montreal Alliance defeat the Brampton Honey Badgers
>> Alliance drop home opener to the Edmonton Stingers
>> Alliance announce new signings, bring back coach Derrick Alston Sr. and staff
Montreal travels to Ottawa for a rematch against the Blackjacks on June 11th – the first back to back for both teams this season. Both squads now have identical records in what should be an interesting match-up.
