The Israel Under-20 Men’s National Team defeated Spain for the second time at the European Championship on Saturday, this time by the score of 80-69, and will compete for fifth place in on Sunday when they face Greece.

Sharon Avrahami’s team played extremely well from the get go and went into halftime with a large lead thanks to excellent defense that held the Spaniards to only six field goals in the first half. The blue-and-white continued dominating in the second half and went on to win by double-digits.

Mayer scored Israel’s first four points while minutes later excellent play by Roe Avneri and Ariel Sela, who grabbed eight rebounds in the first quarter alone put the blue-and-white ahead by 14 points at the end of the prior, 22-8. A power outage at the arena didn’t stop Israel’s momentum, as Yoav Vitlem and Maxim Filonenko scored at will to bump up the advantage to 41-21 at halftime.

The third quarter was all Avneri who hit a trio of triples while Shahar Doron’s first three-pointer helped maintain Israel’s comfortable lead at 70-47 by the end of the frame as Omer Mayer scored with ease in the fourth to close out the win.

Avneri nailed five 3-pointers as he led the team with 22 points, Mayer added 18 points while Vitlem scored 11 points in the victory as Pablo Navarro paced Spain with 14 points in the loss.

Sharon Avrahami spoke about the win, “This was a very important victory with a lot of character after a big disappointment in the game against Italy, where we also dominated for a large portion of the contest. The players proved in this game that our basketball throughout the tournament was good and that we are fighters who are mentally strong. This is a historic victory over Spain, beating them twice in the same championship. We are very happy, especially for the players and the team.”

Omer Mayer also commented about the victory, “After the game against Italy, we were all very disappointed, but we knew that we had to gather ourselves up as best as we could. We knew that Spain is a good team and it would be difficult to beat them, certainly to defeat them twice in the tournament.”

The Israel Under-19 Women’s National Team defeated China 84-79 thanks to a record setting 38 points by Gal Raviv at the World Championship on Saturday and will compete for ninth place in the tournament against the winner between Nigeria and South Korea on Sunday. Head Coach Tal Natan’s team was superior to the Asian squad from the outset to take a 10-point lead that they held for most of the game. But China was able to mount a late game comeback and snatch the lead with five minutes to go in the game but the blue-and-white were able to hunker down and and take a historic victory.

Israel got off to a good start as Raviv and Maayan Cohen helped the side to an 18-14 lead by the end of the first quarter as Raviv opened the second period with 6 points to bump the lead up to double digits. However, the Chinese stayed close thanks to controlling the offensive rebound, but Raviv went off in a big way and dropped 17 points in the frame alone to give Israel a few 46-41 advantage at halftime.

Raviv continued where she left off to being the third quarter as Cohen also scored but China began to cut down the gap but a critical triple by Ayala Oren at the end of the third quarter kept the blue-and-white in front 60-56 after thirty minuets of action. China pushed hard in the final frame and too a 70-69 lead midway through the fourth quarter but a 3-pointer from Cohen, points in the paint by Savyon Kamer and a Raviv jumper closed out the 5-point win in style.

Raviv scored 38 points, Cohen added 19 points and Oren put in 15 points in the win as Yaqi Liang with 25 points and Yuqian Li with 21 points paced China in the loss.

Tal Natan spoke about Raviv’s performance, “It’s an honor for me to coach her, I’ve been waiting my whole life for a point guard at this level, now I’ve got one. She’s a point guard at the highest level, she’s a winner, a scorer, a baller and a leader. She’s so positive and I salute her.”