By Jeremy Martin

Two Jamari Smith Steals, a Khaleef Griffin three pointer and pretty tip in by J. Kilgore all within the final two minutes of play weren’t quite enough for the Chief Sealth Seahawks to pull out of a twenty point hole against Cleveland during Saturday night’s 50-39 loss to the Eagles.

“I don’t see discouragement, not to make excuses for ourselves but we have three or four critical guys who are sick; people at work call in sick when their sick, but they didn’t call in sick today. I’m going to give them credit for stepping up and playing,” Chief Sealth head coach Colin Slingsby said.

Spurred on by an intense 2-3 trapping zone and plenty of fast break offense, the Eagles jumped out to a double digit first quarter lead and never looked back.

Despite matching up comparably in height, the Seahawks were none the less out rebounded 30-21 and gave up a significant number of second chance points to the host Eagles.

“I’m pretty disappointed in our rebounding in the first half, We have a young and inexperienced team so it’s just going to be a growing process. There is going to be ups and downs with the maturation in the group,” Slingsby said. “We want a little bit better execution and effort than we had today.”

Sealth was led by the sharp shooting TJ Burns and Griffin, who combined for three straight second quarter three pointers that pulled the Seahawks to within four points and made up the entirety of a 9-2 Sealth run.

Burns would finish the game with 8 points while Griffin netted 7 points to go along with two steals. Leeandre Dickerson had a team high 10 points and five rebounds while Alloney Burris and Smith pulled down 5 boards apiece.

“We hit those shots and we hope as the season wears on we’ll hit those consistently across the game, we’re not there yet,” Slingsby said.

The second quarter triples would amount to the best stretch of basketball the Seahawks were able to string together as two consecutive shot clock violations would follow the run and Sealth would enter the half trailing by ten.

Cleveland had three players score in double figures including big man Jalin Bird who finished with a double double of 11 points and 10 rebounds.
Senior guard Kai Green led the way on both ends of the court, scoring 16 points and swiping four steals.

Jewels Sanders added 13 points and Malik Townsend had 9 points and 7 rebounds for the Eagles.

The Seahawks were at a disadvantage right from the get go, as both a Friday night game against Bainbridge and a nasty flu bug contributed to wearing down an otherwise athletic and aggressive squad.

“We had a tough loss to Bainbridge last night and were a little worn down, we have multiple guys sick right now and it really shows. It’s tough to expect what we normally expect out of these guys when they’re not feeling well,” Slingsby said.