The Israel Under-20 Women’s National Team made a dramatic comeback to defeat the Czech Republic 74-73 and even its record to 1-1 in European Championship group-stage action.
Down 57-52 after 30 minutes, the blue-and-white led by Hila Karsh (17 points), Noga Ettinger (15 points) and Emma Rinat (14 points), along with Tamar Singer (10 assists) and Naama Halevy (nine points) were able to overcome the deficit with an 8-0 run down the stretch to snatch the one-point win.
Next up is Portugal on Tuesday to finish up the round-robin group stage as the team will then play in the Round of 16 on Wednesday.
Over on the men’s side, the Israel Under-18 National Team fell in dramatic fashion to Turkey 90-88 to finish in sixth place in the European Championship.
The young blue-and-white were down 64-56 as the game headed into the final frame, and Sharon Avrahami’s crew didn’t have enough to top their foes at the wire.
Shachar Doron, who led all scorers in the tournament with an average of 20 points per game, had a heroic contest with 26 points, seven rebounds and eight assists, Alon Michaeli chipped in with 22 points and Omer Mayer added 21 points in the defeat.
“It was a disappointing end to a terrific tournament,” Avrahami said. “We are very proud of what we accomplished and I want to acknowledge the entire staff that gave the best possible conditions to the players. I’m very proud of the players and that we represented the country with pride. We showed a lot of character and recorded some big victories along the way.”
Israel's Senior Team
The Senior Israel National Basketball Team played a pair of exhibition games in Hungary ahead of the Olympic Pre-Qualifying Tournament in Estonia and Poland and came away with mixed results and some distressing news.
Blue-and-white captain Tomer Ginat went down with a shoulder injury in the first half of the team’s opening game. Upon the team’s return to Israel, the Hapoel Tel Aviv forward will have an MRI to determine the extent of the injury. In his place, Bar Timor was appointed as the acting captain and naturalized Israeli Will Rayman was called up to fill in for Ginat on the court.
Head coach Ariel Beit Halachmi spoke about Ginat’s injury.
“It’s really sad to see a player get hurt and he’s a central player and our captain. He’s a player that I really like and I hope that he will get better soon and that it’s not a serious injury. Tomer is a very important part of the national team, not just on the professional side but also on the personal side.”
On the court, Israel came away with a 90-68 win over Hungary in the first of two games as Roman Sorkin (22 points), Oz Blayzer (12 points) and Gaby Chachashvili (10 points) led the way for the blue-and-white.
“All in all I thought we played a good game while the first half was a bit tough,” Beit Halachmi said following the contest. “It took us some time to get into the flow and our defense wasn’t focused but in the second half we played much better. I think we can be content with the way we played and our style. We still have plenty more work to do but we have players that we can count on.”
In the second game, Iceland topped Israel 81-79 in a close battle as Sorkin once again led all scorers with 24 points and nine rebounds while Yam Madar added 16 points after a quiet first game.
“This wasn’t a great game and we started it asleep,” Beit Halachmi began. “We then took the lead and we had to finish the game off but we weren’t able to, which gave Iceland a lot of confidence. We made many mistakes at the end of the game and it’s good that this happened now so that we can correct these things. This is a game that we can learn from and we have to look ahead as we have another tournament next week. We’ll learn from these two games and we will come into the next ones with a different approach."
Up next for the senior side will be two more exhibition games this coming weekend in Latvia against Ukraine and Holland, which is coached by former Israel National Team coach Arik Shivek.