The Israel Under-20 Men’s National Team remained undefeated as they dismantled Romania 119-68 in the Round of 16 at the European Championship to advance to the quarterfinals where they will face Italy.

Head Coach Sharon Avrahami’s team dominated from the start as the young blue-and-white hit their shots from beyond the arc with 11 3-pointers while shooting at a 67% clip by halftime. None of the team’s players were on the court for more than 21 minutes due to the margin, with all 12 players on the roster also scoring five or more points. Yonatan Abouloff led the team’s scorers with 18 points, while Roy Avneri added a d15 point and 11 rebound double-double.

Israel came out of the gates on fire taking an 8-1 lead after a pair of triples by Avneri as they ran up a 35-20 lead after ten minutes of play. The blue-and-white momentum continued in the second period as 3-pointers by Alon Michaeli, Omer Mayer, Rany Belaga, Aboulof and Omer Dragushanckie bumped the lead up to 69-36 by halftime with 11 of the 12 players scoring at least one field goal.

Ori Cohen, who was the only one who did not score in the first half, found his first points of the contest in the third quarter while Avneri hit his fifth 3-pointer to increase the lead by 40-points as Abouloff and Maxim Filonenko also poured in points to go up 97-55 after thirty minutes of action. The final ten minutes of the game continued in the same vein as Romania failed to be a match for Avrahami’s crew, as minutes were divided up proportionately between the players for the balance as Israel cruised to a 51-point victory.

“The win over Poland and Spain allowed us the opportunity to play Romania,” Avrahami began. “We prepared very seriously for this game and we knew how to finish it off in the first half. Being in the quarterfinals of the European Championship is an achievement and we achieved our first goal.

“Italy is considered a superior team on paper, but we also knew how to win the fourth game in the World Championship, which is the most important part of this competition. We are grounded and we are well aware that it won’t be easy in the upcoming stages. Our team is very connected and hungry. There are 12 very, very exciting players here and I hope that we can reach the semifinals and come into the Italy game ready to go. We have a deep team and each player can contribute in one way or another in every game.”

The Israel Under-19 Women’s National Team fell to Portugal 83-80 in the World Championship Round of 16 in a close battle that saw the Seleção das Quinas’s Clara Silva dominate blue-and-white who still had a chance to tie the game up with under a minute left but Gal Raviv’s 3-point attempt missed the mark. The blue-and-white will now play classification games for the balance of the tournament as Tal Natan’s team will look to finish as high as possible in Brno, Czechia. Ayala Oren scored 20 points, Raviv added 18 points and Maayan Cohen put in 15 points in the loss while Clara Silva scored 37 points to lead the Portuguese to the win.