Olga and Kosta Blank - Brother/sister both playing winning tennis for UNC Wilmington

A brother and sister from Kfar Saba, Israel are both helping their women's and men's tennis teams with solid wins at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.  Kosta, a junior, has been a leader of the men's team in singles and doubles since his freshman year and won the B Flight of the UNCW Collegiate Invitational this fall.  Olga, a freshman, has made a great start of her college tennis career with a win at the UNCW Fall Invitational tournament in the A1 flight. 

 ACADEMIC HONORS FOR ISRAELI ATHLETES

Karin Sendel, sophomore at Ohio State, made the all Big Ten Academic team for women's soccer.  The team finished the season with a 17-5-2 record and shared the Big Ten title.

Assaf Shelg, Dmitri Pelts, Liad Amir and Oron Levi all made the all academic team for the MAAC conference.  The four Israelis are on the men's soccer team at St. Peters College in New Jersey.

Liran Shapiro is halfway through his junior year at Rutgers, maintaining a 4.0 GPA in the Honors Program while playing on the men's volleyball team.

ABOUT ISRAELBRIDGE
Who We Are:
Ross Greenstein, Scholarship for Athletes President and Founder of The Israel Bridge

Dan Aronovic, Head of Operations, The Israel Bridge

Our Vision:
The Israel Bridge will work to be the largest resource for connecting and developing relationships between Israelis and Americans.

Current activities:
Finding athletic scholarships for deserving Israeli athletes in the US. We have over 40 athletes attending schools like Ohio State, UCLA, Maryland, UNLV, Arizona, Arizona State, Binghamton, University of San Francisco and many others.

Visit our website for more info:
www.theisraelbridge.org

Donate:

 Shir Fuchs Named Skyline and HVWAC Player of the Week

NEW YORK, NY – Dec. 7, 2010 - After a strong 4-game week, that included Yeshiva’s first win of the season, Shir Fuchs was named the Skyline Conference’s and Hudson Valley Conference’s Player of the Week. This is her first award in either conference this season.

In four games this week, Shir Fuchs averaged 23.5 points and 2.8 rebounds, including a career high 29 point effort in Yeshiva’s win over New Rochelle in the annual Betty Shabazz Tournament hosted by Medgar Evers. Shir shot an impressive 57.4% from the field and 57.7% from behind the arc this week.

On the season, Shir is leading the Skyline conference with 21.3 points per game (3.5 points ahead of the next girl). She is the only player to score over 100 points this season (170) and boasts the third best shooting percentage (.495) in the conference. She has connected on half of her 3-point attempts (23-46) and leads the Skyline in percentage and 3-point shots made. She is also top in the conference at 38.88 minutes per game.

The Yeshiva University women's team boasts a second Israeli player as well, Adar Beitner of Tel Aviv.

The Yeshiva University Men's team has 6 Israelis on the roster.  Seniors Ohad Babo of Kiriyat Ono and Daniel Somech of Jerusalem, junior players are Omer Haim of Rishon LeZion and Chen Biron of Kfar Saba with new tranfer  Niv Zinder of Tel Aviv and sophomores Gil Bash of Tel Aviv and Chen Sina of Rishon LeZion round out the largest group of Israelis on one college team in the US.

                                                             PLAYER   PROFILE  

                                                       ALON LEICHMAN

Class: Freshman Height: 5'9" High School: Givaat Brenner Weight: 177 Bats/Throws R/R Position: RHP

At Cypress College: First year at Cypress, top Israeli pitching prospect.                  

High School Highlights: A member of the Israel National Baseball team since the age of ten… participated in the MLB European Academy… played in the U21 All-Star Game against Italy.

Personal: Born on May 29th, 1989… parents are Marilyn Gold and David Leichman… siblings are Eliora and Arishai… major is undecided… has a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu… came to Cypress after three years in the Israeli Army.

 COMING NEXT MONTH:  Meet two Israeli athletes starting school in January 2011