By Kyle Howard

Number six state ranked Cleveland Eagles visited West Seattle for a girl’s metro league matchup Friday night Jan.27th. The game began 45 minutes late; the gym had to be evacuated during the JV game when a popcorn machine at the concession stand caught fire. After Firefighters left the JV game finished and the girls began the game at 7:00 rather than 6:15. 

From the tip off the Cleveland girls showed why they deserve to be ranked sixth in the state. They brought a lot of pressure to the West Seattle offense as they forced over 30 turnovers with 24 of them coming from steals. Cleveland’s defense allowed only one field goal in the first quarter with a score of 20-2 going into the second quarter. They kept the pressure up all game as they defeated the West Seattle Wildcats 64-26.

Cleveland’s head coach Stephenie Wheeler-Smith was pleased with her team’s defense but also saw room for improvement. “We need to make sure to play good defense for all four quarters, we played well and were still growing as a team so that’s good”. The other big key to the win was their ability to get the ball down low in the post for close range shots. “That’s one of the areas we’ve really struggled on, we’ve really been focusing on making sure our inside presence does well, which takes pressure off the outside so the shooters can get their shots”.

West Seattle has had a struggling season but they never seem to quit no matter what the score is. When a lot of teams would throw in the towel and give up the Wildcat girls keep working hard. Head Coach Sonya Elliot was pleased with their effort. “They don’t give up and that’s great, we had a few players missing so we had a lot of young players in there and they played really hard against a tough team, I’m really proud of them.”

Cleveland did a good job of spreading the wealth of scoring. Every player who played scored with four players in double digits. Joyce Harrell and Makayla Roper scored 14, Eunyque Patu and Donniesha Webber both finished with 10. For West Seattle Charli Elliott scored 8 and Gabby Flores scored 7.

West Seattle’s record now stands at 4-11 overall as Cleveland’s is at an impressive 14-2.