Mac TA beaten by Rishon in BSL return

Maccabi Tel Aviv is still suffering from the after-effects of the loss to CSKA Moscow.

By SHARON SOLOMON
Maccabi TA 298.88 (photo credit: AP)
Maccabi TA 298.88
(photo credit: AP)
Maccabi Tel Aviv is still suffering from the after-effects of the loss to CSKA Moscow in the Euroleague final. The yellow-and-blue visited the Rishon Le Zion arena and failed to prevailfor the second time this season. In other games, Hapoel Tel Aviv needed an overtime period to beat Ironi Ramat Gan at the Nokia Arena and Bnei Hasharon prevailed over Elitzur Ashkelon, while Givat Shmuel withstood a second half comeback by Ironi Nahariya to achieve an impressive away win. Ironi Rishon Letzion 81, Maccabi Tel Aviv 70 Nikola Vujcic scored all of Maccabi's points in their 5-0 run at the start of the game, but Rishon managed to turn the score to 20-19 by the end of the first quarter. Or Eitan added to Maccabi's misery by burying a buzzer beater to give the hosts a 43-39 halftime lead. Rishon kept the heat on Maccabi with their physical defence and opened up a 15-point lead in the third quarter with great all round play by Sneed, who finished the game with 20 points and seven rebounds. Vujcic injured his wrist during the game but managed to finish with 17 points, Tal Burstein scored 16 and Solomon added 11 points and four assists. Galil Elyon 116, Ramat Hasharon 99 Lior Eliyahu was dominant in the opening minutes and led the Galil to a blistering 9-2 run in the opening minutes. The one-sided first quarter ended in favor of the hosts (32-18), who enjoyed many uncontested shots after playing some solid defence. With a halftime lead of 66-46, the last two quarters were played only for the protocol only, with Eliyahu continuing to display some brilliant postup moves. The energetic forward scored 31 points to secure the easy win. Givat Shmuel 106, Ironi Nahariya 101 Nahariya produced a poor first half and enabled the visitors to open up a comfortable 60-51 lead. Timmy Bowers led the show with his trademark mid-range jumpers and finished the half with 17 points. And Bowers kept his best moves for the final minutes of the game and finished the game with 35 points to give Givat Shmuel the dramatic win. Bnei Hasharon 92, Ironi Ashkelon 87 Bnei Hasharon fell behind 1-12 after Brian Tolbert scored nine quick points in Ashkelon's impressive first quarter run. Brandon Kurtz also came out aggressive and hit a rare threepointer that helped the visitors to take a lead 27-18 at the end of the first period. The hosts turned the tables on Ashkelon in the second half with some impressive play by Terrance Rencher, who registered 25 points, four rebounds and eight assists. Cisse finished with 22 points and also grabbed a total of 13 boards in the game. Hapoel Tel Aviv 99, Ironi Ramat Gan 89 (OT) Both teams played an inaccurate and low-percentage game in a physical game. Marcus Hatten had a good evening, including 8 points in the first quarter and it seemed that Tel Aviv was heading towards an easy win. But Tunji Awojobi scored six continuous points for the visitors and cut the hosts lead only to 74-79, midway into the final quarter. Erez Catz was dominant in the final minutes of overtime and secured the win.