By Anastasia Stepankowsky

The Chief Sealth girl’s basketball team was in over its head against the Lakeside Lions (12-1). The Seahawks (4-7) have been climbing up the ranks of the Metro Conference recently. But in Friday night’s game the climb hit a wall, ending in a 79-46 loss at home.

The Seahawks (4-9) had no answer for Lakeview’s height advantage and deadeye three-point shooting.
Oshae Walker’s layup got the Seahawks on the board first. But Lakeside went on a 19-0 tear and ended the half with a 52-25 lead.

“We couldn’t match the scoreboard. Our shots didn’t fall.” Chief Sealth head coach Katie Jo Maris said. “We’re usually a better shooting team, and it didn’t happen for us tonight.”

Lakeside is ranked No. 1 in the Metro Conference and has only three players shorter than 5-foot-5. Only five Seahawks are above that height.

The Lions were led by senior guard Sydney Koh and sophomore forward Kallin Spiller, who combined for five three-pointers in the first half. Koh ended with 9 points, all from outside the arc, while Spiller netted 32, with 22 coming in the first half. Lakeside’s junior guard Kimijah King also led several fast breaks to the net and ended up with 13 points overall.

Chief Sealth made halftime adjustments in an attempt to tame the Lions.

“We pretty much tried to keep the ball out of Kimijah’s hands and out of [Spiller’s] hands. Those two seem to be the main ball handlers. When they had it, stuff happened. We tried to keep someone on them at all times and make everyone else on their team beat us,” Maris said.

Maris’ strategy worked. King and Spiller were held to four points and eight points respectively in the second half, but the game was already out of reach.

“I think we played pretty well against the number one team in Metro right now,” Chief Sealth forward Sydney Thomas said. We really worked well as a team, and we played our hardest all four quarters.”

Chief Sealth is at Ingraham at 7:30 p.m. this coming Wednesday.