Hapoel Jerusalem downed Darussafaka 69-67 in a hard fought battle to win their opening Champions League game in front of over 5,500 rabid fans at the Arena. The Reds came out slow and fell behind early as Wayne McCullough and Gabriel Olesani paced the visitors, but birthday boys Khadeen Carrington and Levi Randolph helped cut the lead down to just 2-points, 41-39 at halftime. The second half saw Aleksander Dzikic’s squad show grit and guile as big man Zach Hankins controlled the paint at both ends of the floor and Oz Blayzer hitting a big 3-pointer down the stretch to take the victory.

Carrington and Randolph each scored 15 points a piece and Hankins added 10 points and 9 rebounds to secure the win. Olesani with 14 points and McCullough with 11 points led Darussafaka in the loss.

“They played really tough and I’m really impressed by our fans,” Jerusalem coach Aleksandar Dzikic said. “I hope that we will have even more next game. We know that we can play better but what counts is that we won. All of the problems that we expected to happen, happened, but winning the game was a better gift than some other outcome from the game.”

Levi Randolph who was celebrating his birthday along with Khadeen Carrington spoke about the victory, “It was a hard fought game and we knew they were going to be a scrappy team that will fight. We had to play all 40 minutes and we came out with the win.”

“Jerusalem has a bright future in the competition,” Darussafaka coach Selcuk Ernak said. “We knew it was going to be hard and we controlled the rhythm. But when you have 17 turnovers and 13 assists on the road you will have issues.”

“Having 17 turnovers on the road made us lose and we will have to improve over the next games,” Ercan Osmani reiterated.

Darussafaka got on the board early as Wayne McCullough and Akwasi Yeboah helped the visitors to a quick 11-0 lead midway through the first quarter. Gabriel Olesani and Markel Starks got to work for the Turkish squad while Khadeen Carrington and Or Cornelius found points for Hapoel Jerusalem but Selcuk Ernak’s team stayed in front 25-15 after ten minutes of play.

Hapoel Jerusalem began to chip away at the lead as Carrington his his shots on the outside and the inside while Levi Randolph and Oz Blayzer scored as well to pull the Reds to within 32-29 with five minutes remaining in the second quarter. Randolph kept filling the basket, Speedy Smith went from deep but Can Korkmaz and Hakan Sayili kept Darussafaka ahead 41-39 at halftime.

Mareks Mejeris put down a dunk while Smith and Carrington each went from downtown to knot the score up at 47-47 midway through the third quarter. Sayili, Olesani and Dogus Özdemiroglu went on a mini 6-0 run while McCullough also added points to put the visitors back into the lead 55-53 after thirty minutes of action.

Ercan Osmani dialled up long distance and Olesani cleaned up a rebound while Zach Hankins dunked, Noam Dovrat drove to the hoop for a layup and Carrington stripped McCullough to get Jerusalem to within 62-61 with 5:05 remaining in the fourth quarter. Randolph and Hankins each scored a deuce and Blayzer drilled a line drive triple to put Jerusalem ahead for good and take the win.