Maccabi Rishon Le’Zion defeated Hapoel Eilat 89-75 to earn promotion to the Israel Basketball Premier League as they won the Leumit League finals series 3-2. Qua Grant and DJ Burns combined for 51 points in a game that went back and forth for the opening three quarters until the pair of imports helped Sharon Drucker’s team pull away in the final frame to not only take the win but to also punch their ticket to the top league. Rishon will return to the Premier League after three years in the Leumit League and many of the players will follow the club up to the top division while Drucker is expected to be back as well.

Rishon had started the season poorly but made some roster changes along the way which saw a pair of underperforming imports let go and the Burns and Grant duo come in. With the personnel moves, Drucker was able to maneuver though the wavy waters of the Leumit League and join Maccabi Raanana as the second team to move up to the Premier League.

Rishon won the opening game of the series down south on the road while Eilat did the same in game two with away from home. The Red Sea squad then were victorious on their home court as they looked to close out the series on the road, however, Sharon Drucker’s team were able to win a tight game at home to knot up the series at 2-2 setting up the game five win to punch their ticket to Israel’s top league.

Dusty Hannahs and Brandon Huffman scored early on to give Hapoel Eilat a quick lead, but Qua Grant and Josh Freund along with a last second triple by Amit Reuven handed Maccabi Rishon Le’Zion a 24-19 lead after ten minutes of play.

Reuven continued with the hot hand from the inside and outside but midway through the second quarter Huffman’s dunk broke the backboard which led to an hour break in order to repair the basket with the visitors holding a 31-30 lead. Hannahs came out of the delay with points while so did Jordan Coblin as a DJ Burns dunk gave Sharon Drucker’s team a 40-39 halftime advantage.

Hannahs and Porat started to score at will to open the third quarter, Grant responded as did Burns but Hannahs couldn’t stop scoring as he gave Danny Gutt’s side a 62-59 lead after thirty minutes of action. Burns kept finding the bottom of the basket and Grant went from beyond the arc to take a double digit lead and break the game wide open to wrap up the victory and ear promotion to the Premier League.

Grant scored 31 points, Burns added 21 points and Freund scored 17 points in the win. Hannahs scored 30 points, Porat chipped in with 15 points and Huffman put in 11 points in the loss.

Rishon Head Coach Sharon Drucker expressed his excitement after winning the series, “Wow! Crazy! We dreamed about this and all season we were geared up to do exactly this, I have a great staff and I did it my way, defense, defense, defense. That’s how I always play and we brought the team up to the Premier League. We had such a huge heart to be able to do this.”

“This was an incredible series and I have a group of warriors. I have always said that we are family and perhaps we don’t have the biggest names we all have huge hearts which always win out. We did it our way like Frank Sinatra’s famous song. We made some adjustments over the course of the series but the key was all of us sitting and watching game three and we learned something from that contest which were able to implement into our game plan for the last two games of the series.”

Amit Reuven spoke about the victory, “It’s amazing and our fans were incredible, this promotion is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. Our hearts and soul along with the fans really pushed us on to this win. We didn’t begin the season well and we had wanted to fins in first place in order to take the automatic promotion place. We made some adjustments and we brought in a pair of great players who helped us go from 10th place all the way to the top of league. This was one of the best series that I have ever experienced in the Leumit League and I have been here for five years.”

DJ Burns added, “It’s an amazing feeling and we did such hard work all season long, we were able to handle the pressure. We wanted to win and we did it.”