On Wednesday night, our basketball team took on undefeated league leaders Maccabi Tel Aviv on our home court, the only team left in Liga Bet Tel Aviv with a 100% record this season.
The task at hand couldn't have been bigger as AJ Mitnick's men prepared for the match for the last two weeks, with no league game being played last Wednesday.
With so much at stake, it came as no surprise that the game was tightly-contested, with both teams' defences coming out on top in what was a low-scoring game overall. The opening minutes saw each side flexing its muscles and we broke into a small lead by the time the first quarter was up.
The momentum continued into the second quarter and the lead reached 7 points at times as both teams delivered heavy blows to each other. At the halftime break, we were leading 40-35.
The third quarter saw Maccabi Tel Aviv hit the ascendancy and show why they are the team to beat in Liga Bet this season. They cut the lead down and went ahead by 3 points at one stage.
However, the all-important final quarter was where we really upped our game and we fought back to regain the lead and closed out the game with some clutch plays. Jake Pemberton led all scoring with 20 points, while Barak Swarttz contributed with 15.
Straight from base to the game, newly drafted soldier Nadav Kristal Tenenbaum hit his first-ever 3 pointer in the game's final minutes to effectively secure the win, before coming with an even bigger block down at the other end. To add to the occasion, Nadav transferred to us from Maccabi themselves, having played there his entire life.
There were also big performances from the likes of Nyv Segev and Yona Kadosh, but all who had minutes on the court contributed to this historic win; OBB, Yakir Naftali, Ron Segev, Nate LeRoy, David Amiel and Namer Medina.
The win keeps us in touching distance of the league leaders and next Wednesday we take on second-place Maccabi Orda Ramat Gan, in another massive must-win game.
We remain the league's leading scorers.
Comments