The Israel Under-18 Women’s National Team opens up their European Championship campaign on Saturday in La Palma, Spain as Head Coach Shira HaElion’s squad will look to look to have a successful run in the annual event. However, it won’t be easy for the young blue-and-white as they will begin the tournament against one of the strongest teams in the competition in France. Following the Tri-Color, Israel will then play Serbia and Montenegro to close out Group A play.

HaElion does have a number of up-and-coming promising players including Maya Zilbershlag who has been listed on FIBA’s Website as one of the 10 Players to Watch. Just ahead of the tournament, the team’s star guard spoke to The Sports Rabbi about a number of topics including the goals for the competition.

“From a team perspective, to go as far as possible,” Zilbershlag began. “We have to believe in ourselves and that we are very capable of beating any team on a given day and do the best we can. From a personal perspective, I will try to help the team as much as possible and give my all for us to succeed.”

As for what the guard is excited about, Zilbershlag explained that it was having the opportunity to play with those she has been working together with on the court for many, may years, “I’m looking forward to playing with many of my teammates as we have played together for many years from May Bayko, May Elmaliach, Lee Teichman to Mika Yanay, Noa Maged – all of them. I’m so excited.”

Zilbershlag began playing basketball at the tender age of 3 and followed in the footsteps of her brothers as she played professional ball this past season as a 16-year old for Hapoel Kfar Saba.

“It was a challenging season both as a team and for me personally,” Zilbershlag explained. “Playing at Kfar Saba helped me a lot to develop and develop a different and stronger mentality. Playing with older players also has a positive effect on younger players. As for next season my goals are to continue to progress and see my game develop while playing on a better team where I can play significant minutes and really grow. However, I still haven’t signed with a team yet, so we shall see.”

Zilbershlag had the opportunity to show off her wares abroad as she participated in the Exodus Europe Camp which featured many of the top young talents from around the continent, “It was a nice experience. It’s a totally different world and different than the game in the US. I think it was important that I had the chance to take part in this type of camo and see how others view the game. The game is different and the people are different. Seeing more players and other players while getting to know them was important and fun at the same time.”

High school championships are always great to win and that’s exactly what Zilbershlag did at Rabin Kfar Saba, “The high school championship made history and I’m really proud of all the girls and I’m proud that we managed to win it as a team that played together for many years. The one great thing about playing at Rabin was that the school helps with our studies and is also very considerate of our schedules so it’s much easier to integrate teh two when the school is very supportive in this matter.”

Last year, the Israel Under-16 team had a good run that earned Zilbershlag rave reviews including being listed on FIBA’s website as one of the 10 Players to Watch in the upcoming Under-18 European Championship.

At last year’s event, Zilbershlag amassed a stunning 18.9 points and 8.3 boards per game as the FIBA website described her as, “A physically strong and dominant guard. She could be the one to inspire Israel to success and is being tipped to soon make a transition to senior action after also shining in the Israeli League.”

Zilbershlag also spoke about the Under-16 Eurobasket, “I think it’s amazing to see the young women who put us on the map last year and managed to reach such an insane achievement. It was nice to be able to represent the country and really play well as a team. I think anything that can be done to help the team win is especially important to us in this situation.”

As for the women’s game, the 17-year old believes that it is growing in Israel but certainly more can be done to see it hit the next level, “I think it’s amazing to see how women’s basketball is developing around the world and I believe that in Israel it’s also slowly developing but we need to give it another push, because it’s no less important.”

Zilbershlag was short, sweet and to the point, “Reaching the WNBA.”