Hapoel Holon downed a game Hapoel Galil Elyon 91-83 in an entertaining contest in Winner Cup play that saw Natalie Galuk become the first woman to referee a basketball game in the Premier League at the Toto Arena.

The purples held the upper hand for the majority of the matchup as Jordan McRae and Netanel Artzi helped Danny Franco’s team to pull away in the third quarter to go up by 17-points, 79-62 as Jaylen Blakes tried to keep his team in the game but Holon held on for the win.

McRae scored 23 points, Artzi added 17 points and Idan Zalmanson scored 14 points in the victory while Blake’s scored 19 points, Deandre Gholston put in 18 points and Yahel Melamed chipped in with 12 points in the loss.

Following the game, The Sports Rabbi spoke to Jaylen Blakes about the team’s performance along with his own personal showing in his pro debut having attended both Duke for 3 years and his final college season with Stanford.

“It’s unbelievable. I’m blessed with the opportunity to call myself a professional and just do it with these guys. It was a great experience playing against a great team and a great environment like this. I’m just excited to get the season started.”

Blakes played with a number of NBA players in college including Paolo Banchero, Jared McCain, Mark Williams and Kyle Filipowski and comes to Israel with plenty of solid experience but also understands that he will be taking in a lot as a pro in his first year out of school.

“I think for me obviously it’s a listening year and I’m just going to give everything I got, just 100% effort, defense, everything. I’m just going to give all I can to help my team get a win.”
As for making the decision to come to Israel, the 22-year old explained how he landed up in the Holy Land, “I got a call from my agent, spoke with my family and realized this is the best situation with the best coaching staff. You just see the people in the city here, Galil Elyon, you just see the family environment and that was something that was very important for me, just being surrounded by family.”

In a funny moment during the course of the game that drew plenty of smiles and a good laugh was when Blakes was on top of the ball on the floor and was looking to call a timeout, but in International basketball unlike college and the NBA, that’s not allowed.

“Yeah, I’m getting used to these new FIBA rules. That’s the college thing,” Blakes said with a big smile and a nice chuckle.

Blakes isn’t the first and definitely won’t be the last to try that here in Israel!

In other Winner Cup play, Kiryat Ata eased past Nes Ziona 111-87 as Bodie Hume led the way with five 3-pointers to pace Eldad Bentov’s team to the victory. Kiryat Ata jumped out to a 37-15 lead after the opening quarter and never looked back to record the win. Hume scored 25 points, Yuval Hochstadter and Jamiya Neal each added 20 points with the latter grabbing 12 boards and Malik Hall dropped 19 points in the victory. Andre Curbelo scored 19 points and Spencer Weisz chipped in with 15 points in the loss.