The finals series of the Israeli Women\u2019s Premier Basketball League, the Athena Winner League,
\ncontinues this evening at 18:45 IDT (11:45 EDT), with hosts Elitzur Ramla looking to close out the
\nbest of five game series against Maccabi Bnot Ashdod. Ramla lead the series 2-1, however they will
\nbe looking to bounce back after their 96-82 loss to Ashdod on Thursday evening.<\/p>\n
In game 3, Liz Cambage (23 points, 17 rebounds and 3 assists) and Natisha Hiedman (23 points, 8
\nrebounds and 3 assists) led the scoring for Ashdod, while Shakira Austin (26 points, 10 rebounds and
\n3 assists) and Alysha Clark (22 points, 11 rebounds and 5 assists) spearheaded Ramla\u2019s attack.<\/p>\n
After their game 2 win, Ramla coach, Shira Haelion, said that when the team was down, she told her
\nplayers, \u201cit\u2019s all in your head,\u201d and that they needed to stick together. Ramla looked like they were
\ngoing to continue the way they finished that game in game 3, as they got out to a quick 6-0 lead.<\/p>\n
However, Ashdod was able to take a slim 22-19 lead after 10 minutes, which increased to 51-36 at
\nhalf time, a deficit from which Ramla could not recover.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t be more proud of them,\u201d Ashdod coach Le\u2019coe Willingham said of her players after game
\n3. \u201cOur backs were against the wall, and we knew that everyone had to bring just a little bit more. I
\nthink everyone did that today and they did what they were good out. They didn\u2019t play too much
\noutside, it was for the team tonight, and I can\u2019t ask for anything better than that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cambage, who herself had a double-double half time, was particularly happy with the team\u2019s
\ndefensive effort: \u201cYou know, it\u2019s nice to come out and actually execute our defense. That was our
\nmajor focus tonight, just get our defense right and we finally did that.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, coming into Ramla to try to even the series won\u2019t be easy, and Hiedeman understood
\nwhat they needed to do in order to prepare for this evening\u2019s game: \u201cWe just need watch film and
\nstill get better. Eighty-two points is still a lot for them, so we just need to figure how to cut back
\nfrom that and rest, hydrate, and get ready for the next one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ramla\u2019s shooting percentages was much lower on Thursday than they were in the previous two
\ngames in the series, shooting 40.0% from 2 (compared to 44.7% and 45.9% in the first two games)
\nand 33.3% from 3 (compared to 57.1% and 41.9% in the first two games). Alyssa Baron highlighted
\nthe struggles that Ramla had in the game, scoring 5 points 1\/9 from the field) whereas in the
\nprevious game she shot 9\/15 (including 8\/13 from behind the arc).<\/p>\n
While Ramla will be looking to turn things around this evening, Ashdod will be hoping that they can
\ncontinue to build on the game 3 win to force a deciding game in Ashdod on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just going to watch film and get ready for the fight of our lives,\u201d Willingham said. \u201cIt comes
\ndown to the little things in a series like this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The finals series of the Israeli Women\u2019s Premier Basketball League, the Athena Winner League, continues this evening at 18:45 IDT (11:45 EDT), with hosts Elitzur Ramla looking to close out the best of five game series against Maccabi Bnot Ashdod. Ramla lead the series 2-1, however they will be looking to bounce back after their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":85405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[485,29,1205],"class_list":["post-85403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holy-land-hoops","tag-ashdod","tag-israel","tag-ramla","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n