Hapoel Jerusalem crushed Bnei Herzliya 88-68 in a game that was never that close as Kenny Lofton Jr. starred for the reds to cruise into the Winner Cup semifinals where they’ll meet the winner of the Maccabi Tel Aviv and Kiryat Ata quarterfinal matchup.

Zack Bryant, DJ Burns and Nathan Knight scored for Bnei Herzliya while Dusan Miletic, Jaleen Smith and Davontae Cacok found points for Hapoel Jerusalem as a triple from Nimrod Levi and a deuce at the buzzer from Shake Milton gave the reds a 28-20 lead after ten minutes of play. Dusty Hannahs started to hit his shots, Kenneth Lofton Jr. along with Smith and Milton responded, while Levi went deep again to give Sasa Obradovic’s team a 41-29 advantage at halftime.

Lofton filled the basket to begin the third quarter while Eitan Burg, Roi Huber and Yovel Zoosman all scored with ease Noah Carter, Daeshon Francis and Bryant tried to keep Yehu Orland’s team in the game but Jerusalem opened up a 65-42 lead after thirty minutes of action. Gaby Chachashvili finished off a nice play with Lofton and Smith leading the way, Lofton added points as did Milton and Zoosman to run away with the victory.

Lofton scored 17 points, Milton added 11 points while Smith, Levi, Chachashvili, Burg and Zoosman all put in 9 points in the win. Gershon scored 15 points, Hannahs put in 13 points and Francis scored 12 points in the loss.

Sasa Obradovic talked about the win and the EuroCup coming up, “It was important that we won and it was an unorthodox game where we okayed forty minutes against a zone defense. In the first quarter we didn’t start well in the second quarter we started to play defense and we went from there. We have a very important week with the EuroCup coming up. We know how important this competition is for our fans and we will do a lot of preparation. We want to start off well and we want to make a statement with certain standards that we always will want to have.”

Yehu Orland spoke about the defeat, “We are a bit short on our roster and we can see that when playing a team like Jerusalem. We want to win every game and we’re readying ourselves for our first Basketball Champions League game that’s coming up in ten days. As for Shalev Luguashi he’s a player that we weren’t planning on having back as things didn’t come together but let’s see what may occur in the future.”

Kenny Lofton discussed the victory, “Great game, we came out after the first quarter and really did well the other three. I’m going to continue executing my game, listening to my coaches and playing hard. As for DJ Burns he’s a great guy and Herzliya was great competition but personally I have to stay disciplined and not get technical fouls, it’s not up to me but the referees. I’ll just keep playing my game.”

Amit Gershon reflected on the loss, “It wasn’t a great game for us and we saw they were very aggressive but we are getting together as a team as we have been doing for the preseason. I’m very happy that I’m with a team Bnei Herzliya and a to have chance to play for this franchise.”