Herzliya blasted Hapoel Tel Aviv 110-82 to not only take the big victory over their former teammate and last year’s league MVP Chinanu Onuaku but they also snatched the final spot in the Israel State Cup competition.

Oren Aharoni’s squad came out flying in the opening frame as Maurice Kemp and Chris Babb led the way to a 32-11 lead while Sandy Cohen, Andy Van Vliet and Julian Gamble all continued to find the basket with ease to take the 28-point victory.

Kemp with 29 points led the way, Van Vliet added 24 points, Cohen chipped in with 16 points and Gamble scored 13 points in the win. Xavier Munford paced the Reds with 24 points, Jordan McRae added 14 points and Tomer Ginat scored 13 points in the loss.

“We defended well and right from the start the players were focused,” Herzliya coach Oren Aharon began. “We closed down the rebound on defense and we controlled the pace of play. The players are experienced and understand importance of these types of games. As for Onuaku, I’m not surprised that we didn’t have a ceremony for him, but we love him and we did great things with him.”

“We didn’t play our best basketball and Herzliya came into the game very focused,” Hapoel Tel Aviv coach Danny Franco said. “We tried so many things to get back into the game, but nothing seemed to work. We didn’t play team basketball and while we are a good team, we couldn’t figure out what to do in that first quarter.”

The game MVP Maurice Kemp looked back at the win, “We were really focused defensively and we were great. We held one of the best offensive teams in the league to 82 points and when you play hard defense it translates into offense. We shared the ball and rose that all game. I just try to play as hard as possible.”

Bnei Herzliya jumped out to a quick 15-4 lead on the strength of baskets from downtown by Chris Babb and Sandy Cohen while Maurice Kemp also scored at will midway through the first quarter. Kemp dunked, Babb and Quinton Hooker went from deep while Cohen and Julian Gamble kept scoring to take a 32-11 lead after ten minutes of play.

Chinanu Onuaku, J’Covan Brown, Xavier Munford and Tomer Ginat began to cut into the lead but Andy Van Vliet and Gamble kept the hosts ahead 42-25 with five minuets remaining in the second quarter. Babb went from deep and Kemp dunked but Munford, Ginat and Idan Zalmanson all found points while Gil Beni and Jordan McRae dialled up long distance to head into halftime down 54-40.

Cohen took the ball downcourt for a big dunk to get the third quarter underway, Ginat and Munford came back with points, but Van Vliet hit a pair of buckets to stay ahead 65-50 midway through the quarter. Ginat and Cohen traded buckets, Van Vliet continued to shoot lights out with another triple, while Hooker and Cohen did the same as Kemp scored inside and Cohen nailed another one from beyond the arc to bump the lead up to 85-62 after thirty minutes of action.

Gamble scored an easy deuce to begin the fourth quarter, Hooker went in for a 3-point play, Van Vliet drilled home a corner 3-ball and Gamble dunked to put the exclamation mark on the big win.

Hapoel Jerusalem jumped all over Hapoel Gilbia Galil and then needed to hold on to chalk up a 77-71 victory at Gan Ner. The Reds came out flying as Zach Hankins, Or Cornelius and Speedy Smith helped Aleksandar Dzikic’s team build up a 48-29 lead at halftime. But, the hosts began to chip away at the lead thanks to Tre McLean and Justin Gorham but it was too little to late to overcome the deficit as they fell at home by half a dozen points.

Hankins scored 16 points and added 9 rebounds while Cornelius and Smith each checked in with 13 points a piece in the win. McLean paced Gilboa with 17 points and Gorham added 11 points in the defeat.

“They played better than a team at the bottom of the league and they have a good roster,” Dzikic said. “It’s super hard to play these types of games when they were down by 20 points in the second half and they have no pressure. These types of things are always dangerous. When we are focused it’s not the easiest to play against us and when we are not we are average.”

Or Cornelius looked back at the win, “This was an important victory and we knew that they are a team that had to win and they did everything in their power to do so as they had nothing to lose. We were winning by almost twenty at halftime and we knew that they would mount a comeback which is what they did. I’m happy we won and now we can turn our attention to Galil Elyon next week.”