Bnei Herzliya downed Maccabi Rishon Le’Zion 89-83 as Max Heidegger and Noah Carter helped the hosts go out in front 47-40 at halftime and never looked back to notch the win. Both Heidegger and Carter scored 20 points and Chinanu Onuaku added 17 points in the victory while Khlil Ahmad scored 28 points in the loss.

Herzliya Head Coach Yehu Orland spoke about the win, “First of all, like any game, we’ll take the final result. There were good things, we once again handed out a large number of assists and there were also things we could have done better. We were a bit surprised by their 3-point percentage; up to now they hadn’t really excelled at that. But credit to them, especially to Khalil Ahmad, who hit a trio of triples. That surprised us a bit and hurt our game plan somewhat, but overall our offense flowed pretty well, and we’re very proud of the win.”

Maccabi Rishon Le’Zion bench boss Guy Kaplan also talked about the game from his point of view, “Overall it was a close game, a game of small runs. Offensively, all in all, we played fairly well; we lost a few too many balls, but we led the game to where we wanted it. Defensively, I think we weren’t aggressive enough. At the end of the day the game was decided by Max Heidegger and we didn’t manage to answer that back with baskets of our own, which is a shame. But credit to Herzliya, they are a very good team.”

Max Heidgger reflected on the victory, “We were better than them, point blank, but we have to show that in the game. Our goal isn’t to beat Rishon, it’s to compete with everybody, the big teams and everyone else. The State Cup is coming up so I think we need to play a bit harder, be a little better defensively and a bit less sloppy, don’t give up offensive rebounds, but a win is a win and we’ll take it.”

Khalil Ahmad discussed the defeat, “I feel like we were there for the majority of the game, but Max hit a couple of really big shots at the end of the half and then at the end of the game to give them a nice little cushion. We’ve got a couple of things to figure out so we can keep moving forward. Personally, I feel very confident. As long as we keep buying into the things that we need to do, I feel like we’re going to put ourselves in a really good position.”

Hapoel HaEmek cruised past Maccabi Raanana 89-71 as Kyler Edwards, Nick Ogenda and Niv Misgav all picked up the pace in the third quarter to pull away and close out the win. Edwards scored 18 points, Agenda added 17 points and Misgav put in 15 points in the victory while Daylen Kountz scored 15 points and Tyrese Radford added 13 points in the loss.