Elizur Ramla 70 – Ramat Hasharon 44
Last year, Ramat Hasharon won the championship on Ramla’s home court in
game
5 at the buzzer. This year, Ramat Hasharon picked the wrong day to have
its
worst game of the year and probably in club history. Ramla was also far
from
brilliant, shooting 31% from inside the arc compared to Ramat
Hasharon’s
28%, but they took 18 more free throws and made five 3-pointers
compared to
none by Ramat Hasharon. Ramat Hasharon wouldn’t have beaten Elizur
Holon
they way they looked, but can still be proud for even making it this
far.
The winners of 3 straight championships and 4 of the last 5 had a tough
year
full of roster changes and injuries, yet dragged Ramla to 5 games.
Ramla led 17-14 after 1. Ramat Hasharon’s center, Lidiya Varbanova,
amazingly enough turned the ball over 5 straight times in the 2nd and
Ramla
raced to a 27-16 lead. Ramat Hasharon got it’s 2nd basket of the
quarter
with 4 minutes left in the half, but Tamar Maoz scored 5 points in the
final
2 minutes to make it just 30-27 at the break, also thanks to Ramla’s
dreadful shooting percentage.
Just when we thought Ramat Hasharon could not have a worse half, they
proved
us wrong. Ramat Hasharon went without a single field goal in the 3rd
quarter, and was just 4 of 27 from the field in the 2nd half. With all
due
respect to Ramla’s defense, they’re not that good. Ayana Walker, who
didn’t
have a field goal in the first half, and Ina Gourevitch woke up in the
2nd
half and led Ramla to a big win. They now face Ramat Hen in a best of
five
series for the championship. Game 1 is on Thursday in Ramla
For Ramla:
Ayana Walker – 19 pts (4/13 FGs, 11/14 FTs), 15 rebs
Ina Gourevitch – 16 pts (6/12 FGs)
Monika Veselovski – 13 pts (4/13 FGs)
Amber Hall – 9 pts, 11 rebs
Liron Cohen 6 pts
Draguslava Zakula 4 pts
Nili Natho 3 pts
For Ramat Hasharon:
Gunta Basko – 15 pts (3/10 FGs, 9/10 FTs), 5 rebs
Gwen Jackson – 8 pts (3/12 FGs, 2/2 FTs), 16 rebs
Lidiya Varbanova – 8 pts (3/10 FGs, 2/2 FTs), 5 rebs
Tamar Maoz 7 pts
Aluma Goren – 6 pts, 5 assists