Maccabi Ramat Gan advanced to the Winner Cup final with a 99-89 win over Bnei Herzliya. Amin Stevens starred for Shmulik Brenner’s squad as he filled the the bucket early and often to help his team to the title match where they will meet the winner of the Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Hopon semifinal. After a close first half Shmulik Brenner’s squad broke away in the third quarter with points from Stevens, Adam Ariel, Roberto Gallinat and Drew Crawford to take the victory.

Stevens scored 27 points, Ariel added 23 points and Crawford scored 13 points in the win. Chris Silva scored 21 points, Eitan Burg chipped in with 17 points and Josh Hawley scored 11 points in the loss.

“Two different halves for us and we had a ton of energy in the second,” Ramat Gan head coach Shmulik Brenner said. “We saw Roberto who had been out for a while play and Benyahu as well, but it’s clear that the players are still learning one another. We didn’t shoot well in the first half but we picked it up in the second half.

“We knew we had to be competitive and that’s why we have a deep squad. Against Hapoel Tel Aviv we didn’t have a number of players that we had in this game which was very important. The game against AEK will be an important step for our franchise as we will be playing in Europe and we will need to be prepared and ready.”

“It’s tough to discuss just this game but on the entire preseason process,” Herzliya coach Yehu Orland began. “Most of the team don’t have European experience other than John Meeks who has a bit but we paid a price for that in this game with a lot of young Israeli players. The guys really had a good preseason and you’ve got to understand that when we go into the season we need to look at things a bit differently as well. We did beat Hapoel Jerusalem earlier in the week who have a very good squad and we will need to be ready when the season opens in a little over a week.”

Eitan Burg reflected on the defeat, “We have to state with our defense which wasn’t great and we allowed Amin Stevens to do as he pleased already in the first half. Our offense we will have good and bad stays but our identity has to be our defense which needs to come every game and it just didn’t. It also seemed that Ramat Gan just wanted it more than us and we had foul trouble which gave us issues. But we have to look at this in proportion as this was a preseason tournament that we can see where we need to improve.”

As the game got underway, Amin Stevens scored the bulk of points for Maccabi Ramat Gan while Omer Ben David, John Meeks and Eitan Burg helped Bnei Herzliya to a slim 20-17 lead after ten minutes of play. Stevens continued to be the main man for Shmulik Brenner’s squad as Adam Ariel and Roberto Gallinat scored as well, Chris Silva, Jimmy Clark and Daeshon Francis responded for Yehu Orland’s side while Drew Crawford found points for Ramat Gan and Josh Hawley did the same for Herzliya as they took a slim 40-38 advantage into halftime.

Chris Silva scored points a plenty to one the third quarter but Gallinat found one basket after the next to give Ramat Gan the lead, Clark tried to keep Herzliya close however, Ariel, Stevens and Yahel Melamed bumped up the advantage to 74-63 after thirty minutes of action. Roi Huber and Frederic Bourdillon traded triples to begin the fourth quarter, Silva and Eitan Burg attended to cut down the lead, but Stevens, Melamed, Crawford and Kendale McCullum made sure to,polish off the game and advance to the finals.