Raanana Hertzeliya announce roster
Orli Klinger ,09/14/2009
A little over a month before the start of the season, Raanana Hertzeliya has published the roster for the upcoming year. Two foreigners were signed along with many young Israeli players, two more names are supposed to be added soon.

Raanana Hertzeliya, the finalist in the 07/08 season and one of the top teams in the league in recent years, has published most of its roster for this season. There is no marquee Israeli player, the foreigners are a rather unknown WNBA role player and a former Hapoel Tel Aviv player, and the Israelis are nearly all from the younger national teams.

The veterans among the Israelis are 21-year-old Karin Agassi from Ashdod, Chen Shtain (27) from Ramat Hen and Hadas Levi (21) who resigned from last season. Shtain and Agassi will have to fill the void Shimrit Gigi left by signing with Ramla after her breakout season. The good news is that both Shtain (5.5) and Agassi (8.1) averaged more points last year than Gigi did the year before her breakthrough.

The rest of the Israeli cast consists of Hadar Gutin & Aloisa Katz from the U18 nationa team, Liron Shifter and Maya Riter from the U20 NT and 18 year old Inbal Yaari, all of them grew up playing in Raanana or Hertzeliya.

Alex Anderson (23, 6’1) who played last year for Hapoel Tel Aviv was one of two foreigners signed. Anderson, a versatile forward and one of Ex-Maccabi Tel Aviv Willie Anderson’s 12 children, scored 20.6 points and grabbed 9.5 rebounds per game last year for Hapoel.

The 2nd foreigner is Olayinka Sanni (23, 6’2) of the Detroit Shock for the past two years, This season Sanni recorded 3.8 points and 1.8 rebounds in less than 10 minutes per game, similar numbers to her 2008 production when she won the WNBA Championship with the Shock.

Sanni is a graduate of West Virginia University, where she made the Big East 1st Team in her last two years before being picked #18 overall in the 08 draft by Detroit. Sanni also has quite a bit of international expierience after representing Nigeria in the 2007 World Championships in Brazil and playing last year in France. She scored 13.2 points and added 5.7 rebounds in 27 minutes per game for the 7th place team.

Raanana Hertzeliya is now looking to sign a point guard and another Israeli player. Also this season the team will play at Aviv gym in Raanana.






Latest stories
Print






©All rights reserved