On Wednesday night, Inter Aliyah took on undefeated league leaders Maccabi Tel Aviv, the only team left in Liga Bet Tel Aviv with a perfect record this season. The task at hand couldn’t have been bigger as AJ Mitnick’s men prepared for this game over the last two weeks and With so much at stake, it came as no surprise that the game was tightly-contested, with both teams’ defenses coming out on top in what was a low-scoring game overall.

The opening minutes saw each side flexing its muscles as Inter Aliyah broke into a small lead by the time the first quarter was over. The momentum continued into the second quarter and the lead reached 7 points at times as both teams delivered heavy blows to each other with the halftime score 40-35 in Inter’s favor.

The third quarter saw Maccabi Tel Aviv showed why they are the team to beat in Liga Bet this season as they cut the lead down and went ahead by 3 points. However, the all-important final frame was where Inter fought back to regain the lead and closed out the game with some clutch plays. Jake Pemberton led all scorers with 20 points, while Barak Swarttz contributed with 15.

Straight from base to the game, newly drafted soldier Nadav Kristal Tenenbaum hit his first-ever 3 pointer in the game’s final minutes to effectively secure the win, before coming with an even bigger block down at the other end. To add to the occasion, Nadav joined Inter from Maccabi having played there his entire life.

There were also big performances from the likes of Nyv Segev and Yona Kadosh, but all who had minutes on the court contributed to this historic win; OBB, Yakir Naftali, Ron Segev, Nate LeRoy, David Amiel and Namer Medina. The victory keeps Inter within touching distance of the league leaders and next Wednesday face second-place Maccabi Orda Ramat Gan in another massive must-win game.