Basketball/ Ramle can clinch title tonight vs. Bnot Hasharon
By Arie Livnat
The outgoing chairman of the Israel Basketball Association, Yermi Olmert, and the new chairman, Shay Shani, will be present tonight at game four of the women's Premier League final series between Elitzur Ramle and Bnot Hasharon, and if Ramle wins - they will both award the championship plate to captain Ina Gourevitch.
Ramle has come back from a 1-0 deficit to take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five series, plus it has home-court advantage tonight and a great tradition, so the chances are good that it will happen.
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Immediately after the big win in Herzliya on Monday night, they spoke in Ramle about how that makes it more difficult in the next game. Three times in its history Ramle has come home in order to celebrate a championship, and lost: in the third game against Carmiel in 2000, against Ramat Chen in 2004 and in the fifth game against Ramat Hasharon in 2003. It has celebrated three of its league titles at home - in 1996, 2005 and 2007.
However, to a large extent, the story of this series is Bnot Hasharon, which had a winning record against every other Premier League club during the regular season and finished in first place, but has evaporated in the last two games.
"In the second game we got out of the rhythm of the game," observed captain Ornit Shwartz. "In the third game, we were closer to the game plan and we took comfortable shots, but they didn't go in and that caused a lack of confidence. We created a snowball and then we were forced to chase after it."
What characterized Bnot Hasharon's season was its teamwork, which yielded an average of 82 points per game. In the final series, it has been held to just 69.
"Both clubs like to run," said Shwartz, "but we came into the series tired, and because of this the scores have been low. In the last game, there were no excuses and we weren't tired; we will come and we will give it our all."
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