Beat Ashkelon...now 7-2 and tied for 2nd place...

Last night we hosted Ashkelon in our gym for the Monday night game of the week.  I really had no idea how we were going to play because we were still a little banged up, and had never really put it together in our previous week of practice.  Fortunately for us, Ashkelon was dealing with the same issues.  They have the leading scorer in the league, and for some reason he didn't start, nor did he play with the same scoring tenacity that he had on the film we watched.  Regardless, we played very good defensively in the second half, and after spreading it to a double digit lead early in the 2nd half, it never got close the rest of the way.  

This leaves us at 7-2, and tied with Maccabi Tel Aviv for 2nd place behind Jerusalem.  Next week we have the very tough task of heading down to Tel Aviv and playing them in their home gym, the 10k seat gym of Nokia Center.  It should be pretty cool playing against Maccabi Tel Aviv for the first time.  They are the New York Yankees of Israeli basketball, always playing in EuroLeague competition, as well as always having a much bigger budget than the rest of the league.  Either way, it will be a real good test for us, so we can see how we measure up.

As for the non-basketball, everything is safe and sound here in Haifa.  The only minor scare we had was the one instance where rockets were fired from the north and landed in Nahariya (40 mins away, a city we have played in before).  Fortunately, it seems as if that North attack was a one time thing, and seems to be nothing to worry about in the future.  Obviously the stuff in Gaza is still going on, but one report on the TV over here said Israel is close to hitting all of their targets, which means it might not be lasting that much longer.  Although I would rather not see any war at all, it has been very interesting being over here during this time, and seeing the back and forths between Israeli leaders and Palestinian leaders, and being here while it is all going on.  

That is all I got for now, but I will be back later in the week for another update.  Hope all is well with everyone!