Maccabi Netanya held Maccabi Haifa to a 1-1 draw as the squads each scored a goal a piece in the second half to split the points. The draw allowed Hapoel Beer Sheva to move into a first place tie with the Greens who hold a better goal differential. After a goalless first half, Yuval Ashkenazi scored from the penalty spot against his former team to give the diamond city side a 1-0 lead, but Omer Atzily found the equalizer as each team took a point in the entertain matchup.

“You have to be content to take a point against Maccabi Haifa,” Netanya coach Benny Lam said following the game. “But we can also be disappointed because we could have taken all the points against Haifa and Maccabi Tel Aviv. We wanted it more and we played attacking soccer but over the last ten minutes we needed to just keep our stability, Our goal is to bring back our fans with inspired play.”

“It’s disappointing not to win and this was the second time in as many games,” Haifa coach Barak Bachar said. “We started well and ended well but had issues win between but we needed to control the pace of play in order to create chances for ourselves because the opposition understood how to cut us off.”

Hapoel Beer Sheva slipped by Hapoel Jerusalem 1-0 in a matinee at Teddy Stadium in the capital city. Eugene Ansah scored the lone goal of the comest in the 44th minute when winger Danilo Asprilla sent a ball to the Ghanian attacker who nodded it home to take the 3-points.

“This was a very tough game,” Beer Sheva coach Roni Levy said. “We saw how they made life miserable for both Maccabi Tel Aviv and Maccabi Haifa the last couple of weeks. They are fighting against relegation and I admire their coach Ziv Arie for putting out a team that was organized and very difficult to play against.”

“I’m disappointed and this should have been a 0-0 draw,” explained Arie. “We knew that this game would be decided by an error one way or another and we closed off their set pieces, but that’s soccer. We need points in order to stay in the league but they scored and we didn’t.”

Maccabi Tel Aviv downed Ashdod 3-1 at the port city side to take the 3-points with three unanswered second half goals. Ran Ben Shimon’s squad opened the scoring as Muhammed Knaan broke the deadlock in the 37th minute to take the lead against a dominant yellow-and-blue first half.

However, Maccabi quickly bounced back in the second half with a pair of quick goals to take the lead. Tal Ben Chaim finally put Mladen Krstajic’s club on the board as Gaby Kanichowsky sent the winger a terrific ball that he was able to direct into the Ashdod goal in the 56th minute while two minutes later Eden Shamir sent a perfect volley behind a helpless Shachar Hasson to grab 2-0 advantage. Stipe Perica sealed the deal when he headed home a Brandley Kuwas corner kick to secure the points and the victory.

“I think we had a very good first half and controlled the game but we weren’t able to score a goal,” Krstajic said. “We had a couple of chances to score and it may have been our best first half. The second half we saw that Maccabi have good and character players as we scored three goals to win the game.”

“Maccabi deserved to win and they were better than us today,” Ben Shimon said. “After we scored it put them into shock and they came back to win. We can’t play the we did defensively which was very naive against a high quality club like Maccabi.”

Hapoel Haifa blasted Beitar Jerusalem 5-1 as Alen Ozbolt scored a hat-trick for the hosts to take the 3-points and the easy win. Alon Turgeman opened the scoring with a goal off a rebound in the 10th minute while Ozbolt took care of a Dor Malul through ball a quarter hour later to give the Carmel Reds a quick 2-0 lead.

Dudu Twito added Haifa’s third marker in the 39th minute while Ozbolt polished off a Hanan Maman just ahead of the break to give Haifa a commanding 4-0 lead at halftime. Liran Rotman pulled a goal back early on in the second half but Ozbolt added his third strike of the night to finish off the 4-goal victory.

“Beitar may not be in a good situation right now but they are still a good team,” Haifa coach Elisha Levy explained. “I’m happy that not only we won but we play well in front of our home crowd. Our offensive and defensive play as good and we want to get into the Championship Playoffs but there are a lot of good teams and it won’t be easy.”

“We believed that we could compete and keep some of the outside noise away from the team but that’s the elephant in the room and it was just not possible,” Beitar’s interim coach Gal Cohen said. “I want to apologize as to how we played and it’s not acceptable to be down 4-0 at the half.”

Hapoel Nof HaGalil blanked ten-man Maccabi Petah Tikva 1-0 as Timothy Muzie took advantage of an Ernest Mabouka ball in the box as the midfielder put it by Arik Yanko to give head coach Shay Barda his first win with the club.

“I really want to keep this team away form relegation and play attacking soccer,” Barda said following the win. “We may have been missing some players but we have others to take their place. The game was quite even until Or Inbrun was sent off and we took advantage of that.”

“We had this game in the palm of our hands,” Petah Tikva coach Nir Klinger began. “We played well in the first half and we felt that we were in control but then we had a player sent off which made things all that more difficult as we played a full half without a player.”

Hapoel Hadera got by Hapoel Tel Aviv 1-0 as the red hot Gustavo Marmentini scored a second half goal from in close to take the 3-points.

“We won and I am very satisfied as we beat a very good team,” Hadera coach Menachem Koretzky explained. “I am very happy as to how we are playing this season and I am very content for the players as they deserve this win.”

“We couldn’t find a way through Hadera’s defense,” Hapoel Tel Aviv coach Kobi Refuah said. “We weren’t good enough and we deserved to lose. We knew it was going to be a tough game and we worked hard this week at practice but we just couldn’t create good enough opportunities to score.”