The quarter-final stage of the Winner Cup tournament continued today (Friday) and arranged for us an intriguing meeting at the new Enerbox hall in Hadera.
Hapoel Jerusalem defeated Hapoel Eilat 74:82 and qualified for the semi-finals.
The red crowd in Enrbox, photo: Oded Karni
For Aleksandar Džikić's men, the game was the first official test of the intriguing project put together by the Serbian coach in the capital, after a successful pre-season campaign of five wins from five games.
In the ranks of the Reds, Gilad Levy finished his rookie year, but due to the fact that he did not train with the team regularly for several weeks, he did not take part in the match.
On the other hand, the players of Ariel Beit Lahemi advanced to the second games in the preparatory tournament, after beating Ness Ziona in the round of 16 at home.
The southerners appeared for the match in the shadow of a plague of injuries that afflicts the team, that besides the injured Casey Prather, the Brazilian center Scott Machado is also sidelined and the date of his return to the fields is unknown.
Speedy Smith, photo: Oded Karni
The two teams knew each other well and had already met for one preparatory game this summer, in which the Jerusalemites prevailed in the Malcha Hall 59:64 over the southern ones, in a game that was played in a special format of eight minutes in each quarter due to the plague of injuries in the southern team.
Bethlehem
Many are missing, photo: Oded Karni
The first quarter of the match was tight throughout, with the team from Eilat leading by a small margin, thanks to an aggressive game under the baskets.
Good minutes by Kadin Carrington gave the Jerusalem Reds the lead in the second quarter, but Eric Griffin made sure to keep the Eilats tight.
The game continued to be close even in the third quarter when neither team was able to escape their opponent.
The Jerusalemites opened the last quarter with a quick 0:9 run and took an eight-point lead, but the Eilats answered with their own run and balanced the game.
The final minutes of the match belonged to Kadin Carrington who took control of the game and led the Reds to a dramatic victory.
Cornelius.
What a debut, photo: Oded Karni
were we wrong
We will fix it!
If you found an error in the article, we would appreciate it if you shared it with us
