Maccabi Tel Aviv were stunned by Maccabi Bnei Reineh 2-1 as the yellow-and-blue were sent home from the Israel State Cup tournament on a 92nd minute Ezekiel Henty goal as Sharon Mimer’s squad punched their ticket to the quarterfinal round of the competition. After a goalless first half, Ido Shahar found the back of the goal in the 47th minute to give Zarko Lazetic’s team a 1-0 lead, however, a Stav Lemkin own goal just two minutes later tied the game up a 1-1. As the matchup looked to be headed into overtime, Henty headed home an Abdallah Jaber cross to send Reineh into the next round of play.

Lazetic spoke about being eliminated from the up following the game, “I want to congratulate Reineh on the victory. We are disappointed, it is a very bad moment for us to lose like this. Reineh played their own style, got into our area three times and scored twice. I can’t say anything bad about my players, they gave everything and created a lot of chances, but we had the responsibility to score goals on our opportunities.”

Mimer looked back at the win, “I told everyone at the club that at Reineh we are constantly looming to challenge ourselves and take our play to the next level. In the last two years, we have sacrificed the cup and I told the players that this time around I really want us to take the next step in this competition.”

Hapoel Beer Sheva swamped Hapoel Hadera 6-0 to ease into the next round of play. The southern Reds scored early and often as Dan biton scored a brace to send Ron Kozuk’s team into the next round. Amir Ganah opened the scoring in the 8th minute while Helder Lopes put home a penalty twenty minutes later to double the advantage. Dan Biton made it 3-0 just before the break while Kings Kangwa scored minutes into the second half. Yoni Stoyanov then scored while Biton put in his second marker of the game to close out the victory.

Kozuk spoke about the win, “I’m happy with the way we played, especially in the second half, even though it was easier because we were already leading. I didn’t like our defense in the first half. We were a bit cocky because the game opened up quickly in our favor. We talked about it at halftime and we really improved. We pressed well and I’m proud of that.”

Marod Kostika, Asaf Nimni’s assistant coach spoke about the loss, “This was a very tough defeat. We have an important game on Saturday in the league and we took that game into account here. We gave a lot of players a chance to rest. This defeat doesn’t give confidence for that game, but a lot of our top players didn’t play. We didn’t think this game would end the way it did, but we’re now looking forward to our next game.”

Ashdod walloped Beitar Nordia Jerusalem 4-1 to move into the next round of State Cup play as three second half goals was all that the port city squad needed to continue on in the competition. Ben Levy gave Eli Levy’s Ashdod team a 1-0 lead just ahead of the break while Mohammed Cnaan, Noam Muche and Stav Nachmani all scored for the visitors. In the 89th minute Bar Shushan scored to break up Ariel Harush’s clean sheet but the goal was too little too late to make a difference in this game.

Eli Levy said following the game, “I don’t think Nordia Jerusalem had any scoring chances in the first half, but we knew we were coming here to play smart from the first second. In the first half, everything was really even and we were able to score the goal in the 45th minute and change the game in the second half. In games like this, you have nothing to lose except qualifying for the quarterfinals.

Beitar coach Eliran Maman spoke about the game from his point of view, “The gap between quality decided the game. If we had taken advantage of the number of chances we had, we could have been in the game but unfortunately, we didn’t know how to do that.”