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Concordia Stingers defeated Estonia 63-57 to win the International Academic Sport Association Tournament in Be’er Shava, Israel earlier this week, the culmination of a 7-1 record at the tournament, in which the Stingers avenged their only loss to a Serbian team in the round-robin with a semi-final victory. The Stingers now move on to represent Canada at the 2nd Friendship Games in Tel Aviv. The event started yesterday with pre-tournament game festivities and the actual tournament begins Sunday, June 3rd. We hope to have results as they become available. Stingers win tournament in Be'er Shava

Here is a complete recap of the games in the Be'er Shava tournament courtesy of a blog written by a graduating Concordia student who is in Israel with the team Trip blog by Concordia graduate

Summary: The Stingers took 9 players with them including graduating fifth-year senior Patrick Perrotte. Other Stingers who made the trip include Dwayne Buckley, Damian Buckley, Andre Johnny, Jamal Gallier, Levi Vann, Pierre Thompson, Sebastien Martin and Desmond Murphy. The tournament in Be'er Shava was the 39th annual International Academic Sport Association Tournament, made up of 16 teams, 13 of which are Israeli universities with other teams from Estonia and Serbia making up the rest of the field. Concordia, dubbed "Team Canada" for this tournament, played their first 2 games of the round robin on Monday, May 28th, defeating Ben Gurion University of Israel 66-44 before giving up a late lead and losing 59-57 to the Serbian team in a game described as chippy and poorly officiating and apparently marred by a couple of near brawls. The Serbian's hit 3 late 3's to claim the win and then proceeded to dance around center court celebrating the win. The next day, Concordia defeated Sapir (Israel) College 58-20, Wingate (Israel) College 71-41 and then watched as their third opponent of the day, Ashkelon (Israel) College, took a forfeit (Ashkelon had lost by 40 to Wingate earlier in the day). Concordia thus completed their round robin games at 4-1 and according to reports went over to watch the Serbian women's volleyball team which as we later found out, reciprocated in coming to watch the remaining Stinger games. On Wednesday in the quarter finals, Concordia came through with a 52-40 victory over Israel University, setting up a rematch with the Serbian team in the semi-finals, which Concordia won (although we don't know the details as of yet). Concordia then captured the championship with a 63-57 victory over Estonia as per the report above. Congratulations to coach John Dore and the Stingers and best of luck in the Friendship Games which promise to be much more competitive, as reports indicate that most teams are of NCAA high Division II, low Division 1 calibre.

Chad Lucas reports on Kevin MaBone, the newly-named Head Coach of the ABA's Halifax Rainmen, in this Halifax Chronicle-Herald column High Expectations