Hapoel Tel Aviv outplayed the champions in a crazy game

BC Hapoel Tel Aviv played an excellent game against Feni Industries in Jasmin Hall  in Kavadarci and deservedly won 82:85. This was Hapoel’s second victory in the EUROHOLD Balkan League, as they outplayed KK Napredak Rubin in the first round. The guests from Israel amazed with their great performance, while Feni Industries continued to be wobbly in their games this season. The current BIBL champion faced a lot of troubles in defense during the whole game, as the players of Hapoel TA were difficult to stop for them. These, along with the huge number of turnovers decide the game in the favour of Erez Edelshtein’squad. The team from Kavadarci were without N’Gai Evans who is out with a injury. In tonight’s game

three other players went back to the court as they also suffered injuries in the team’s previous games – Goran Samardziev, Jarrid Frye and Slobodan Mihajlovski.

               The game started better for Feni, as the Emil Rajkovic’s squad managed to take  the lead in the first minutes -  after a three-pointer of the MVP of the last Final Four Darko Sokolov, the score was set to 12:8, 6:20 before the end of the first period. Hapoel tied for 18:18 with 3 more minutes of play. Until the end of the quarter, the guest totally dominated the game, taking 7 points lead – 19:26. In the second period, Erez Edelshtein`s side continued with their good performance, and after 17:21, they were up by 11 points at halftime – 36:47. The guest from Tel Aviv
recorded a very high two point percentage, as they made 18 shots from29 attempts. They have also advantage in the rebounds – 25 against only15 for Feni.

 

              After 30 minutes of play the score was 55:64 for Hapoel, as in almost the whole period, the difference were in double digits, but after a three pointer from Feni’s captain Goran Samardziev the lead dropped to 9. The interesting was that hosts missed 7 free-throws in this quarter. In the decisive last period Feni Industries started very motivated and after only 3:30 minutes on the court they reduced the difference to only 1 point – 67:68.  The champions got harder in defense, but
Corry Carr with a 3-pointer and Curtis Kelly with a dunk again improved the lead of their team to 6 points – 68:74. In the remaining 4 minutes Feni missed the opportunity to turn the things, although that they improved their level of play in the last quarter. Darko Sokolov missed a difficult shot from 9 meters, setting the final score of 82:85.

 

             The American trio of Hapoel - Corry Carr, Demontez Stitt and Curtis Kelly scored 56 points of 85 total. The team from Tel Aviv finished the game with 58% for two points, which was the key for the success. On the opposit side Feni made 14 three-pointers (50%). Goran Samardziev ended with 19 points in the losing case, while Kiril Nikolovski and Slobodan Mihajlovski added 10 points each.