by Paul Moseley

The West Seattle Girls Basketball team continued their dominance of the Metro conference as they dispatched Garfield 55-39 at home Friday night and improved their winning streak to 9 games. The Wildcats 15-2 overall, are undefeated in the Metro Conference and have moved up to #2 in the State in MaxPrep rankings.

As good as the Wildcats are, the Garfield Lady Bulldogs came to play and gave West Seattle an exciting first half.

Garfield used their speed and precision passing on offense to keep West Seattle a bit off balance for the first 16 minutes. On defense, Garfield was hungry, disrupting the Wildcats with a series of fast paced steals. At the half, Garfield stayed within reach as they went into the half down 23-14 to the Wildcats.

West Seattle came out of half-time and showed why they continue to win. With a team full of weapons, the Wildcats turned to Junior Lexi Ioane and Senior Emily Fiso to take the lead. Ioane scored 12 and Fiso netted 10, covering 22 of the teams 32 second half points.

For the game, Ioane was the high scorer with 18 points. Fiso had 15 points including 6 free-throws and a 3-pointer. For Garfield, Tamia Mobley scored 11 and Juanita Augosto had 8 points.

This Wildcat team continues to do the right things as a team to win, According to Coach Sonya Elliott though, they still have work to do. When asked about the adjustments the team made at half-time, she said “They just have to learn how to get out of their own way”, adding that "sometimes, they think too much". They figured out how to get out of their own way tonight, as they have done for most of this season, and have two more regular season games to dial it in before the tournament.

The Wildcats travel to Prep on February 3rd and are back home against Franklin for their regular season finale on Feb 6.