By Jeremy Martin

The 2014-15 boys basketball season tipped off Tuesday night with Chief Sealth hosting the Foster Bulldogs.

While both squads were eager to hit the court, the 77-49 Seahawk victory could easily be seen as a case of two teams with very separate agendas. With Sealth, a senior laden squad in win now mode up against a freshman led Foster team building towards the future.

For the Bulldogs (0-1) the youth movement will come with some lumps, namely turnovers and chemistry that has yet to fully develop.

“We weren't quite ready for the speed or to execute at a level to keep up. Too many turnovers too many layups,” Foster head coach Isaac Tucker said.

Some of the early game miscues could be chalked up to rust or simply playing too fast, but that would discount the disruptive presence of the Seahhawks' (1-0) 2-2-1 full court trapping press which helped the hosts account for 18 steals.

“It's important. I think we did a good job. That's one of the things we talked about coming into the game was setting a tone with our effort level. There's still some things execution wise we need to work on defensively but I think we did a great job setting the tone tonight for how hard we're going to have to play on defense,” Seahawks head coach Colin Slingsby said.

Despite dressing six seniors, it was freshman Isiah Hart, making his high school debut, that led the way for the Seahawks.

The 5-foot, 1-inch point man set the table with his court presence, hustle and smart decision making finishing with nine points, five steals, four rebounds and four assists.

“Good start for his career tonight. We're excited about him, but we've got a good team. We go about nine or 10 deep and that's encouraging,” Slingsby said.

Foster took the court with a heady freshman guard of its own in Freddie Roberson.
The smooth shooting off guard, one of six first year players on the Bulldog roster, netted 11 points and pulled down six rebounds.

“He's ready. He's far from a freshman. He's a really mature kid. He's got no quit in him and makes this team go. I've got two freshmen that started. I've only got two returning players that are on the team from last year's varsity team,” Tucker said.

Which means the team will face a lot of learning experiences, the first of the season coming during a halftime pep talk with the Bulldogs trailing 42-19.

“The first thing was, don't play the scoreboard. You've got to work on the things we've got to work on. We made an adjustment in terms of how we were breaking their pressure. We don't need to be out of control and throwing the ball around the gym,” Tucker explained.

Surprisingly the same points were addressed by Slingsby, who implored his Seahawks to keep their foot on the gas and avoid any second half letdowns.

“I wasn't too happy with our third quarter to be honest, but I think we closed out the game pretty well. I was talking at halftime about running what we run well. We didn't do so well with that early in the second half. Coming back around and taking a look at this game, that's something we can learn from.
Sealth ended the night with a balanced stat sheet, as nine players scored, four of which finished in double figures.

Senior guard Khaleef Griffin led the game with 13 points and also grabbed seven rebounds, senior guard Alloney Burris chipped in with 11 points, senior guard LJ Burns also scored 11 while senior Ahmed Mohamed and sophomore Evan Moe led the Seahawks in rebounding with six boards apiece while dropping 10 and nine points respectively.

Foster, meanwhile, saw just five players score, led by senior Ronnie Roberson's double double of 12 points and 14 rebounds. Senior Patrick Straight was a dead eye from deep, connecting on three triples en route to 11 points. Freshman Jordan Magee put up eight points in his high school debut and junior Ericsson Leasure chipped in with four.

Up next for the Seahawks is a match up with Blanchet on Friday while the Bulldogs have an early season league meeting with Kennedy.