The Israel Under-18 Basketball Team fell to Serbia 115-114 on a last second 3-pointer in the second overtime period to knock the blue-and-white out of gold medal contention at the European Championship. Sharon Avrahami’s squad will now meet Slovenia in the bronze medal match on Sunday.

Ben Saraf opened up the game well for Israel as Miron Katz added points as well but Mitar Bosnjakovic helped give Serbia a 23-18 lead after ten minutes of play. Omer Mayer, Yaron Goldman and Tamir Gold got busy for the blue-and-white as Aleksa Dimitrijevic countered but Sharon Avrahami’s sward grabbed a 44-40 advantage at halftime.

Saraf took over the Israeli offense to begin the third quarter as Savo Drezgic and Milos Sojic scored at the other end to put Serbia ahead, but Saraf cut the lead down to 66-63 by the end of the period. Bosnjakovic bumped the Serbian lead up to double digits as the fourth quarter got underway, Mayer and Saraf answered, Drezgic and Dimitrijevic came back with points, but Mayer drilled home a triple and then knocked down a pair of free throws to tie the game up at 89-89 with 3.5 seconds left to send the contest into overtime.

Saraf and Mayer each went from deep to begin the extra session, Luka Markovic’s 3-pointer gave Serbia a 98-97 lead with under 10 seconds to go, but Markovic was issued a technical foul for taunting, sending Mayer to the line who tied the game up while Saraf scored the go ahead basket. However, a four by Gold with under a second to to allowed Dimitrijevic to tie the game up at 100-100 as the game moved into a second overtime period.

Saraf and Mayer once again carried the burden with points, Goldman added a floater and a side-step jumper, Drezgic scored every which way for Serbia to pull to within 113-112 with under 10 seconds left but Mayer only hit the front end of his free throws and Andrej Kostic drilled home a triple to snatch the win.