The Israel National Team played their final two exhibition games in Latvia to mixed results ahead of next week’s Pre-Qualifying Olympic Tournament in Estonia. The blue-and-white tied Holland 66-66 in their first game and fell to Ukraine 75-69 but the most disheartening news coming out of Riga was that Nimrod Levi re-injured the same shoulder that kept him out of last week’s exhibition games in Hungary.

Head coach Ariel Beit Halachmi’s squad needed late free throws from Yam Madar and Roman Sorkin to avoid falling to Arik Shivek’s Holland team as the two Israeli coaches decided to end the game in a tie and not play overtime. Yam Madar led the way with 18 points, Roman Sorkin added 15 points and Netanel Artzi chipped in with 7 points for Israel.

“This was a terrific game that showed a lot of toughness,” Beit Halachmi said. “I’m concerned about the injuries to Nimrod and also Will Rayman who stretched a muscle and we didn’t want to risk him. We stopped playing in the second half and we have to see what happened as the score was low and that is not our style of play. We have to get to a higher score but this was a good game that allowed us to learn more about ourselves.”

Israel came up short 75-69 against Ukraine in their second game in Latvia as Nimrod Levi and Will Rayman both did not take part in the game due to their injuries that they incurred in the game versus the Netherlands. The Ukrainians controlled the game in the first half as Bar Timor and Oz Blazer tried to keep the blue-and-white close but down 37-32 at the break.

Roman Sorkin helped Beit Halachmi’s come alive and grab a 50-42 advantage early in the third quarter but a 15-2 run by the Ukrainians gave them the lead for good as Israeli ended their preparation games with one win, two losses and a tie. Blayzer scored 18 points, Sorkin added 14 points and Yam Madar ended the game with 10 points in the defeat.

“We had many good minutes of play in the game, we played well, defended well and scored,” Beit Halachmi commented. “At the end of the day if the players hadn’t tired, missed free throws and focussed I believe that we could have taken this game. I saw that we can go with this squad which is good and we have players that we can rely on who have character and that’s the most important thing right now.”

In other national team news, the Israel Under-20 Women’s team fell to Spain in the quarterfinals and then lost to Italy 92-68 as Dorian Dahan was the high scorer in both games with 15 points and 18 points respectively. This tournament was the most successful by an Israeli women’s team as they were the first to advance to the quarterfinals as Tal Natan’s squad will now play for 7th place against Turkey on Sunday.

Also, the Under-16 Boys team were pounded by Spain 116-61 as Yonatan Keller with 12 points and Aviel Mamo with 11 points led Yehu Orland’s team. On Sunday the young blue-and-white will tipoff against Finland in the second game of group stage round robin play.