Hapoel Tel Aviv moves into the EuroCup semifinals with a win over Turk Telekom while Hapoel Jerusalem were ousted as they fell to Gran Canaria in their quarterfinal contest.

Hapoel Tel Aviv advanced to the EuroCup semifinals after defeating Turk Telekom 67-61 in a tightly contested affair in Samakov, Bulgaria. Marcus Foster proved to be unstoppable to help the Reds punch their ticket to the Final Four where they will face Valencia in a best-of-3 series with the Spanish side holding home court advantage.

Ish Wainright along with Jonathan Motley and Marcus Foster carried the load early on for Hapoel while Braian Angola and Olivier Hanlan paced Turk as Dimitrios Itoudis’s squad took a 28-26 advantage into halftime. Foster and Joe Ragland continued to keep the hosts in front while Hanlan and Kyle Alexander and Angola scored to keep the visitors close but Yam Madar hit his free throws down the stretch to close out the game.

Foster scored 21 points, Madar added 12 points while Motley and Ragland each scored 8 points in the win. Hanlan scored 17 points, Angola put in 15 points and Alexander scored 10 points in the loss.

Following the game Hapoel Tel Aviv Head Coach Dimitrios Itoudis spoke about the victory, “Congratulations to the team. It was a final, the approach was like that, and the team deserves to be congratulated. We were pretty much in the control of the game from the beginning, we managed to come to the double margin 26-15 and we kept them low scoring for such a talented team that was well created with a great coaching staff and coach. They were created to go all the way and win it all and we managed to keep them low.”

The bench boss continued, “Congratulations also goes to the 600 plus fans who bought a ticket and a ticket to fly over here and support the team so we thank them as well as the hundreds of thousands in Tel Aviv and in Israel in general who like when the team gives fight and hustles. We cannot promise that we’re going to win every game, but at least we’re going to hustle and the identity is there. The identity is there also because the locker room is healthy and when the locker is healthy and we keep the locker room healthy then good things can happen.”

Oz Blayzer added, “The defense won the game, I think we came very committed to our game plan, we stopped them and kept them at a low score. We did the right things, everyone sacrificed themselves for the team and we are very happy as we now look forward.”