Elitzur Netanya clipped Bnei Herzliya 91-88 as Kyler Edwards nailed a game winner off the glass with no time left on the clock to give Idan Avshalom’s squad the hard earned victory. John Meeks, Jimmy Clark and Shalev Lugassi all paced Bnei Herzliya to an early double digit lead, Bryce Washington and Carlos Marshall closed the gap for Elitzur Netanya while Itay Moskovitz and Kyler Edwards sent the visitors into halftime with a 52-48 advantage.

Moskovitz and Edwards kept finding the bottom of the basket, Meeks and Shalev Lugassi did the same at the other end but Edwards hit the game winning basket off an inbounds play with no time left to hand Netanya the victory.

Edwards scored 23 points, Moskovitz added 19 points and Washington scored 13 points in the win. Meeks scored 25 points, Clark put in 17 points while Chris Silva and Josh Hawley each scored 10 points a piece in the loss.

“It’s tough to lose like this,” Herzliya Head Coach Yehu Orland said. “We should have fouled and that’s what I wanted to happen. It’s painful and disappointing, but we have a game at Holon and then the State Cup semifinal against Hapoel Jerusalem. We have to look ahead now and put this behind us.”

Hapoel Gilboa Galil defeated Hapoel Haifa 94-83 as the duo Gur Lavie and Niv Misgav propelled the visitors to the win. Tyler Bey and Matt Coleman scored for Hapoel Haifa as Gur Lavie and Ben Moore responded for Hapoel Gilboa Galil, Daniel Rosenbaum kept finding points for Roi Perel’s club while newcomer Paul Scruggs did the same for Sharon Avrahami’s team as Elijah Childs helped his club to a 47-43 advantage at halftime. Niv Misgav started to impact the game with points and assists as Lavie also scored with ease throughout the second half to send Gilboa to the win.

Lavie scored 26 points, Scruggs added 15 points and Moore scored 14 points in the win. Rosenbaum scored 18 points, Bey put in 16 points and Coleman put in 14 points in the loss.

“We had some very good aggressiveness on defense in the second half,” Gilboa Head Coach Sharon Avrahami said. “I told the guys at halftime that if we continued to play soft defense as we did in the first half we would have a tough time the rest of the way, but we locked down and made our lives easier.”

“The fourth quarter broke us after we had stayed in the game in the third period,” Haifa coach Roi Perel said. “We need to play better defense and also find ways to score easier, I am going to have to still work on that as we continue on.”